Quote:
Originally posted by JCrow
IMO:It sends a BAD message to your Team. It tells them that the reason they are losing or are not winning by more is the Refs not their own play. It gives them an excuse to lose. It turns them into "victims" rather than athletes that can control their own destiny.
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This is a very good point and something that I deal with directly with my team. We practice what is in the rule book but it is the job of the players early on (with my help, of course) to adjust to how the game is being called. If the whistle blows, it's a violation, if it doesn't, it's not. Any whining at breaks is squashed early and doesn't go much beyond November.
In our last game, I had a player pick up 2 early fouls trying to steal the ball from a dribbler. When he came to the bench, he complained that on the second one, he hadn't touched the man. I explained that he was out of position and because he was reaching down toward the ball he was drawing the whistle. I reminded him that I wasn't going to protect him and he needed to move his feet.
He didn't work it out and he fouled out before halftime with his teammates pleading with him to move his damn feet and stop reaching. I complained on two of the calls that the official was out of position to see contact and that on the second one I thought he was calling a violation for bad defense and not actual contact - this got a smile.
I am very transparent with my kids about what I am doing and that we each have different responsibilities - they are very perceptive (even though they can't seem to stop reaching). By the way, I didn't feel like I was having much effect on the calls in this one so I tested the waters, read the crew, showed my player I had his back even after I put the burdern on him to clean it up and then I shut up. When we debriefed the game the next day and I asked why we lost, the kid who fouled out immediately offered, "we couldn't stop fouling."
I really screwed up this thread by using the term "worked" in the title. I agree that it's counter-productive to want every call or random calls. I will admit that I have fallen into this trap occasionally when overcome by emotion in a close game but not for long and not even to the point of getting a prolonged look from an official with whistle in mouth ready to slap me down.
Let me give a better example - and a common one for us last year - of what I would consider working an official. At least in our area, hand-checking and, to my biased eye, seemingly minor and incidental, open-floor contact became a point of emphasis last year. We would press and run like crazy and throw to our massive but not-too-tall center inside. He would get pushed in the back, hacked on the arm, grabbed by the shirt, have his feet stepped on and was hit across the face three times hard enough to draw blood with only one of the three called a foul.
I know that a solid, experienced official would fold a point of emphasis right into the rest of his/her game and, I've tried to be diplomatic and haven't called out any specific organization or even given details about my location but last year was not an up year for our officials.
Faced with this situation, early in the game when a legitimate handcheck was called, I would take the opportunity to tell my player that it's the right call and explain why it's the right call loudly enough for the official to hear. Then, if my big guy got hammered without a call, I might make some noise and I might not - depending on the crew. At the first break I would try to make my point that I support calling the handcheck but to do that without calling the same amount of contact on my center is going to give the opponent a clear advantage that should not come from the officiating.
I consider that "working" the officials and, more often than not, either the open-court calls decreased (which I prefer) or the inside calls increased or both. Was it always my influence that did it? I don't really care. Is this cheating? If no one blows a whistle on me, I guess not. Is this a sign of bad officiating of officiating weakness? I'm not the best judge, but I don't really think so.