Quote:
Originally Posted by beachbum
I just finished my second year, so bear with me, and this question may need to be answered by coaches or former coaches.
why is it that when coaches are loosing a game, they seem to blame the officials for their problems? they will make statements like "this is the worst officiating I have seen".
Most coaches will admit, in a non game situation that without exception, officials try to call the games fair. yet, during the game they act as though we are being paid to make the outcome different.
Then the game ends, and the same coaches will say "good game ref", like nothing happened. If we acted like them, we would be banned from the sport!!!
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Keep in mind, just like many (there I go again, Jurassic) officials are new and inexperienced, there is a like number of coaches in the same boat. Coaches go through a similar learning curve as officials do.
Most newer officials have played the game at some level. Most newer coaches have played the game at some level as well. Most newer officials and coaches THINK that this playing experience means that THEY KNOW THE RULES. Most newer coaches think that since they know how to play the game, THEY KNOW HOW TO COACH THE GAME.
Unfortunately, both of these statements are typically wrong for the newer officials and the newer coaches. It is not until these newbies get some experience (along with some mentoring) that the newbies become better at their trade.
As has been pointed out, most fans, parents, players and coaches watch a game with a bias toward their team. They truly only notice the travels, the pushes, the bumps, etc. that the OPPONENTS commit. Since they are looking for the illegal activities of the opponents, they typically do not even see the fouls and violations made by their team's players.
This Board will often discuss how the grade school and middle school coaches -- and sometimes Freshmen coaches -- are much worse then the other HS coaches. This is only logical since most of the grade school coaches are parents OR rookies (you have to start somewhere). These new coaches come from a particularly strong bias -- not only are they new to coaching (and typically not very good at it, therefore their teams are not particularly successful), BUT they have the added bias of being a coach AND a PARENT in the same game. Not only are the officials being biased against the coach's TEAM, they are being biased against the coach's CHILD!
Typically, it takes an official four to five years for the game to "slow down" and for the official to really get comfortable on the floor -- some are quicker than this, but this has been my experience over the years. I think that the learning curve for coaches is a similar length of time. Therefore, many of the coaches that we see in the grade school programs are still in the infancy of their coaching careers.
It is not until the coaches get into that fifth or sixth season that they have truly learned how to coach the game. At that point, the vast majority of coaches realize that they have SO MUCH TO WATCH from a coaching perspective that they spend less time watching the officials. As the more experienced coaches become more immersed in the game, they are more focused on specific player match-ups. Frequently, when coaches reach this level, their comments and/or questions will have much more validity than for the newbies.