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The one thing I take away from this, and granted I wasn't there to hear the exact words used (thus I won't question JRut's judgement), is that the vast majority of the board is willing to treat the assistant coaches like dirt. In fact, many seem to take pride in their less than zero tolerance approach to assistant coaches, and for me at least, this approach is counterproductive.
My opinion is that people who immediately treat assistant coaches with disdain, and giving them the "Mt. Rushmore" are doing themselves a disservice in managing the game. Granted, we can't have multiple voices speaking for a team or disputing calls vocally from the bench, but if an assistant has a respectful question here or there, even about a call I made, I am willing to respectfully answer that question. I won't do it often, but I don't believe in ignoring the assistant or being rude to him (not that I'm saying JRut was in the OP). If I treat the assistants with respect, then I may be able to get a favor from them in terms of helping the team out of a timeout, passing a message or whatever. Plus, it helps to foster a relationship, if I have a tough call and I've been respectful with assistants the assistant could vouch for me with the head coach and help head off a confrontation.
I had one scenario where this helped me earlier this year, and it was with a team I'd never seen before. The assistant had asked me something simple early in the game, I responded politely. Toward the end of the 1st half I had a backcourt call right in front of the bench (near the C, I was T) involving an airborne player leaving FC catching and landing in BC. Coach started to go nuts, assistant calmed him down, and then at halftime the HC came up to me and apologized for his reaction and said the assistant said I got the play right. Assistants can influence the HC, so anything you can do IMO to foster those relationships without any effect on the control of the game can help you during the games.
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