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Originally Posted by CoachP
That's not what I'm trying say, Jeff. There is a difference between a coach arguing an officials judgement call, block/charge, fouls, etc. and him arguing a rule misinterp. In the OP, the official had it wrong because either HE has the rule wrong or HE doesn't know the diff between a live and a dead ball. True, most coaches that are the arguing type are arguing the judgement calls, not rules interps.
I would never in a million years pull out a rule book, as a coach, during a game to have a rules discussion. On the same token, I sureasheck hope an official wouldn't patronize me during a game by saying "read the rules coach". I have, and have passed the test.
I also understand completely what you are saying about the coaches learning the rules and how to handle themselves. I'd be willing to bet my most of my Varsity girls would score higher on the test than our Varsity boys coach.
Those kind of coaches do make "us good one's" look bad in the perception of officials. Just like there are the JMO's out there that make you guys look bad from the perception of us coaches.
I luckily have never had it happen as of yet, but if it did happen as explained, I will burn part of my halftime to discuss with a willing crew.
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I personally treat each coach as an individual. The only thing I may generalize about coaches is that they have an agenda for their team. I have never heard a coach complain about a call that went in their favor. Having said that for every officials that tells a coach, "Read the rulebook," I can give you many examples of coaches literally telling me I have no idea what I am talking about. Only for the coach or coaches to find out later that I was absolutely correct in my explanation or my supervisor to completely back me up on what I told them.
Also halftime is not the time I want to talk to any coach. If you want to talk, wait until the game is going on and even then I am not going to go out of my way to discuss a situation. The rules allow you to call a timeout to talk to an official under the right circumstances. If a coach is not aware of that rule, that is tough. It is also known that I am a very accommodating official as it relates to coaches when appropriate. I think the problem is coaches need to know that we all are not the same and we all do not have the same tolerance levels (which is not a bad thing). If you want to approach an official, raising your voice is not the way to do it and interrupting them is not a way to get on anyone's good side.
I had situation take place this summer that involved an unusual situation because it was a game during the summer. I had a coach trying to debate an issue that was not even relevant because the game was during the summer. I brought the two coaches together only to have one coach trying to debate the situation. He lost a lot of my good graces by his behavior.
Peace