Well coach my experience starting out some 22yrs ago in the youth leagues (Little Dribblers)is that my skills matched those of the players and where else would you learn to Referee/play basketball but at that level.
It seems to me that everyone wants the referees to be perfect when the playes (most of them anyway) don't know where to stand much less what player to guard or what to do when they get the ball. The coaches are allways a parent and mostly the parent of the best player on the team, or a local High School star who after graduation wants to make his mark in the community. Don't get me wrong, we have a couple of very successfull High School varsity coaches that i refereed when they were high school players.
I believe that you as a coach can help your program much more by being very supportive of your officials and pass along to your players that everyone makes mistakes play the very best that you can because the referees are doing the very best that they can.
Making the foul call is the easy part anyone can blow the whistle, the decision of weather that contact had anything to do with the play or not is the hard part and that is the part that is important in this game. That referee is working just as hard as you are trying to get acceptance in the basketball community and that takes time to do. I admire people that are coaching little kids in basketball, but sometimes the coaches have been watching to much basketball from Indiana and they believe that is their JOB to go after the officials.
My grandmother had a great saying, "everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." Coach good luck to you, the kids need someone positive to look up to, to emulate, to show them by example how to go through life! I have noticed that sports is increasingly becomming a babysitting service where the team coach has to discipline the child because the parent is absent, i thank you for taking the active role as coach so that these kids can first and formost learn how to win at life.
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Don
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