An amusing story about "Thank you, coach."
I soccer ref buddy of mine is from England. The mentality over there regarding what is acceptable dissent is vastly different from the US. They really tolerate much more than we do. His normal response is simply, "Thank you, coach." He actually says that over and over and over. I would estimate that he says it in response to about 95% of the complaints from coaches or players.
Usually the person complaining realizes that he isn't going to get anything else out of him and so just stops complaining, but a couple of years ago one coach actually asked him, "Why do you keep saying that? I want a real answer!" His response was absolutely unbelievable!!!
He turned around and without missing a beat actually said, "Because they won't let me say, 'Shut the *#(& up, coach.' "
