[Back In The Saddle]

JV boys, smaller school. Home team completely overmatched. Off and on through the whole game the home coach, who I have had a pretty good relationship with this season, is talking to me about V team fouls that we're missing. At the half my partner and I talk, plan to adjust our mechanics some to try and see this stuff. I even went and talked to the coach at the end of halftime and asked him to tell me exactly what I'm missing. We're really trying to find this phantom stuff. Frankly, mostly what we see is the home team doing stupid stuff, grabbing jerseys, shoving, etc.

With a few mins left in the game, V is up by 30-40. But H is still doing stupid stuff. In the last two minutes I've got a blatant push during a free throw and a dead-ball two handed shove, both by the H team. The coach wants to know why I'm calling stuff on his guys. My answer: "Coach, your guys are frustrated and I'm trying to keep this from coming to blows." Oh, and we fouled out three of his six players.

I absolutely hated how this game ended. I try hard to be aware of game situation and not go rubbing salt in wounds in already decided, lopsided games. But I felt like I had no choice but to keep calling the fouls against H. There has got to be a better way to handle this situation, but what is it?

I guess there are really two questions here: How do I handle the coach, and how do I handle the players?