Good grief! Dave really went over the top on this one. Read it and tell me what you think.
Saturday morning rec league. I'm doing three games with Dave - 8th grade boys. With about two minutes to go in one of the games, the score is A-34, B-31. A1 inbounds, Coach B yells for his team to foul, B1 runs up to A2 (who now has the ball inbounds) and politely grabs the back of his jersey. Dave calls an intentional foul (absolutely the right call).
As you might imagine, Coach B doesn't like it one bit. He raises his voice (not really yelling) at Dave and asks him how he could make a call like that, it's part of coaching to foul to stop the clock, would he rather the player foul harder, etc. You get the picture.
To his credit, Dave calmly (really) explains the rule and reminds the coach that it's a POE this year. The coach doesn't care, and tells Dave it's a stupid rule and we shouldn't enforce it.
Dave gets this big grin. He goes over to his gym bag and pulls out a rule book. He gets a pencil from the table and hands both to the coach. He tells him to please mark all the rules in the book that he doesn't want us to enforce and that we will wait. Dave then sits down next to the table and crosses his arms.
The coach stands there like a deer in headlights while I am trying not to fall over from laughing so hard.
The coach puts the book and the pencil on the table and goes back to his bench and sits down.
Dave gets up, says loudly, "I guess the prospect of having to actually read a rule book scared him." At this point, even the parents were cracking up.
We then administered the free throws and got on with the game. The coach didn't say a word the rest of the game or even after the game, and his team committed two more intentional fouls and lost by 12.
I wish I could bottle Dave and sell him. I'd make a fortune.
|