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Originally Posted by TravelinMan
Greg Alan - regarding the behavior of the coach. I think it was wrong not to say or do anything to the coach. Makes you as officials look incompetent and weak. Try doing this next time. Give him the Stop sign - "coach that's enough" (and say it with conviction). This way you give him the opportunity to stop yelling and correct his behavior. If he ignores you, then T him up. If he listens now but gets out of hand later in the game, T him up. Better game management. And this is not just my opinion. You'll hear this from the elite officials - the ones that give clinics at the camps.
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I disagree that a stop sign is the right approach here, it gives the coach too much leeway to continue his behavior and test you. What the coach is doing here is directly challenging your integrity and competence as an official, and doing so loudly to the point where he's threatening to undermine your control of the game. You need to firmly establish who's in charge of the game right now and do it in a way that everyone in the gym will understand too.
I rarely do middle school games anymore, but it just so happens that last weekend I did a 6th grade girls game at a big AAU tournament, and the coach for one of the teams thought he was a fan at an NBA game, first getting loud because I "missed" a high dribble that he thought was a carry, which I addressed as I went by and then yelling at my partner because of a good no call on the other end. I spun and demonstratively whacked the guy 22 seconds in, and when he started to question me I told him to sit down if he didn't want another. The guy was a good boy the rest of the game, and was very respectful.
Different approaches work with different people. I would never have reacted that way in a higher level game, particularly being demonstrative with the T, but at the level described, often coaches are dealing with newer officials and they try to intimidate them and control the game from the sidelines. You need to draw a line in the sand early that tells everyone in the gym that you're in charge if you're challenged and maintain that level of control throughout. A warning doesn't do that in my opinion, a strong T does.