Quote:
Originally posted by cloverdale
a goal of mine this season is to try and have better communicatios with the coachs...they too put in alot of effort to teach our kids...if I have a coach that has been complaining about calls,not all calls all the time, at half I go over and allow him my "ear" ... most of the time I have found that it is usally one thing that has their concern...if it is justified I tell him I will look at it during the 2nd half...but I also allow the other coach his say...if it turns into a complaining session i'm gone. My partners tell me that i'm opening myself up to potential problems and have run into a buzzsaw once. I dont do this often but most coachs will calmly let you know thier concern...our association has given this a priority to better communicate with the coachs which forces us to improve our people skills and make us better officals.
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Personally, doing something like that would not work for me, especially because it gives the impression that you're catering to a certain coach or that you're giving the squeeky wheel the grease and it might lead to further problems. What has worked for me is to ask the coach to be more specific in what he wants me to look for. If he says something like, "they're all over the dribbler" and I don't see it that way, I'll ask, "I'm not seeing it, what exactly are they doing?" Or ask who they want me to watch. Now I'm getting information that I can use, I can watch #34 for the handcheck on the inner hip or #22 bumping cutters, and I can quickly tell if the coach has a point. If he does I can help him, if not and he continues to complain, I can offer a more educated point of view on what exactly I'm seeing. At the very least he knows I'm working, and at best he's helping me do my job by pointing out something I'm missing. That approach has helped me depersonalize the criticism and maintain a better demeanor on the court, but I can't say how well the approach would work at every level, particularly lower levels where coaches don't have the same experience in dealing with officials.