Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
At the college level, I totally agree with you. At the high school level (at least in my area) I would disagree a little. High school coaches are a different animal. They tend to be less professional and often have less perspective on how to deal with officials. They tend to take things very personal or think that we have issues with them personally, instead of us just doing our job. College coaches have their jobs in the balance. They lose they lose their livelihood on many levels (or it has not changed totally). Not so much the case with high school coaches that if they lose their coaching position, they are still likely teachers. And in many cases here, you will not be hired as just a coach. You will have to work for the school district in order to coach.
And even the big time officials just like everyone else has a coach or two that does not like them in a big way. You do have to be a good communicator, but you also have coaches that are held to a higher standard at the college level.
Peace
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I definitely wouldn't put HS coaches in the same category as college coaches when it comes to professionalism, but I will be using HS coaches as Guinea pigs for self-improvement.
I am an official who falls into the "good play-caller" category, and I know I can be a hard-a$$ when provoked. What was interesting about the D1 coach was that he acknowledged that he can be a pain-in-the-a$$, but he said he has great respect for those officials who know how to diffuse those situations without turning them ugly. In fact, he said he would rather get a technical foul than have an official say something nasty or unprofessional to him. That hit home for me because I rarely T up coaches, but I often engage in combative conversations with knucklehead coaches.
Between what the D3 supervisor and D1 coach shared with us, I am personally dedicating myself to finding new techniques to communicate with hard-to-deal-with coaches.