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Hey guys/gals, first time poster, long time reader. Been reading these forums for about 2 years now and I have to say this is easily one of the best tools I have found for developing my officiating skills.
I've been refing for about 6 years now. Three years doing HS ball (I'm another Portland guy from the PBOA). I think of myself as an above average official, but I've still got stuff to work on (and I'm always willing to take advice from experienced officials) and I try to set one or two goals each year to work on. This year its coach-ref relationship and game management, last year it was traveling. I know I'm not ready for the "big time" varsity games and thats fine with me as I don't expect to have a full varsity schedule this early. The reason why I'm posting is I had a situation tonight, that I'd like some advice on....
I had a double-header Freshman and JV girls tonight. First game, is well, a freshman girls game. Coach for home team is chirping quite frequently early on, but I'm ignoring him. Two times in the first half, his player comes down with a rebound and without any contact from the other team, his player falls to the ground. Both my partner and I blow travel. The second time this happens, he's PO'd, and yells at me after I call a second travel "How can you call that!!! That's TWO times now!!!" Having no choice, I had to whack him (he immediately sits, knowing he's lost his box).
At half time, he asks what could he have done differently. Since he was professional, I answer his question and say his tone was not appropriate or professional, which is why he earned the T. I suggest speaking, in the future, to officials in a professional manner to have questions answered (which I explained if he does to me I'll always attempt to answer his questions).
Third quarter goes by without incident. Fourth quarter is halfway done. His team just scores to close the gap, he yells for timeout. Before I heard the timeout request, Red had already inbounded the ball, so I ignored the request. At a break he asked why the timeout wasn't granted, and I explained that your team has to be in control of the ball to have a timeout granted while the ball is live. He didn't like this and threw his hands up in frustration (nothing major and I ignored it).
At the end of the game, I'm standing away from the teams opposite the table, and he breaks his team huddle and singles me out to say loudly "You know I've got to work on my tone, you need to read the rule book. You are the worst official I've seen this year!!!" I thank him and inform him I will be reporting this to my commissioner. Now after the game I should have exited the court, but I stood off to the side while awaiting the JV game to start. As he's exiting (close to me), he singles me out again, and says pretty much what he said before, with some "added stuff".
After this I go to the locker room (which is what I should have done immediately after the first game) and wait for my partner to arrive. He shows up, we go through the pre-game, and head back up to the court. As I'm observing warmups, I notice that guess who is back? The freshman coach, and oh joy, he's talking to the JV coach, and (double joy) he's now sitting at the table and he's the PA announcer for the JV game. I previously had informed my partner of this, so that he was aware of what happend in the last game.
First half goes smoothly, much better teams, coaches, and abilities. But I do hear some chirping coming from him at the scorer's table. Now the chirping wasn't through the PA system, but through himself while the microphone was off. I ignore him as I've got bigger things to worry about and the JV game was going smoothly at that point.
Halfway through the third quarter, I blow a foul against his team and as I'm reporting, I can hear him talking and shaking his head at the table about the call I just made. I've had enough with this guy and I inform game management that the game will not continue until he is removed from the table. He doesn't like it, home coach doesn't like it, but he leaves and game continues. Game ends and I leave.....
Naturally, I filed a report with the commish of our association, but I'm still wondering what I could have done differently. First time I've removed anyone since my old rec ball and IM days. I know I should have gone to the locker room earlier in between games and perhaps spoken with the AD when I saw him at the table for the second game, but I didn't and that's water under the bridge now. Any suggestions/tips? Would you have done that? Sorry if this seems long or if there are typos as it's late and I've got to work early in the AM.
Thanks in advance!
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