View Single Post
  #12 (permalink)  
Old Mon Feb 27, 2006, 02:02pm
coach41 coach41 is offline
Official Forum Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: SF Bay Area
Posts: 107
This is an interesting discussion, let me add some personal experience here:

I coached an 8th grade girls CYO team several years ago. I had a fairly diverse team with white, black and asian players on the team.

My team was fairly good and we traveled to a gym to play a team that was just awful. The school/team we were playing is majority African American and is in a African American neighborhood.

We were beating the opposing team fairly badly (score of 19-1).

Not only was the team just awful, the coach didn't exhibit any positive leadership at all. He was ripping the refs saying they were favoring my team because I also was a ref. He eventually got T'ed for that.

The unfortunate thing is that the opposing coach's attitude carried over to his team. At the start of the 4th quarter, one of the opposing team literally body slammed one of my players to the floor.

The officials (who I both knew) had done as much as they could to control the game by calling fouls on the opposing team (my team has no reason to foul, that was how bad the other team was).

But the game has become a safety hazard and the game was called after my player was body slammed.

If this case, no matter what the referees did, it wouldn't have mattered. If the opposing coach had more control of himself, then perhaps things wouldn't have gotten out of hand.

As a sidenote, the school/progream in question has improved. The coaching/leadership is good now and the kids play good ball and keep themselves under control.

I guess my point is that ultimately, no matter referees do, it's the coach that points the direction of the team. I have always found it annoying that coaches use excuses why there teams get beat or lose ("The refs cheated us", "you were biased", etc).
Reply With Quote