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By rule, you should only be granted a time out if the ball is in control of a player on your team or the ball is dead. The ball is dead after a goal until it is at the disposal of the team entitled to the throw-in. This window can be very, very short. In practice, if you are yelling for a "time out" and signalling for one, usually by the time I look and verify that it is the head coach and he does in fact want a time out the other team has the ball out of bounds. I will grant the time-out using the theory that you called it in time but lag time on my whistle caused the ball to become live before the whistle, haven't had any trouble so far. That is the way I have seen other officials in my area handle it also. However, if you don't start asking for one until they clearly have the ball out of bounds, it definitely should NOT be granted.
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