I've been awarded one, in more than 10 years of coaching MS and HS. Got it/desrved it for being an obnoxious fan, begging for calls while I was coaching, about 7 years ago. "That" me probably thought the official had been trigger-happy. Since then, I had the fortunate opp to officiate some MS games, HS summer league, and kids' and adults' rec league for about 14 months. That experience and this forum taught me to "coach the team" and not to "evaluate the refs." Nowadays, I'm sure if I earned a T, I would admit I had earned it and apologize to the official afterwards. It would probably straighten me up for a long while. And to answer the question, I would say it would remind me to respect the official more properly. A little like some would say that service of some sort or travel would make an American be more appreciative of his or her own country, I would say that working the dark side would make almost every coach a lot more appreciative of the roles of coaches and officials, and would make most coaches better coaches.
On the other side of the implied question, if I observed a coach abusing an official and the official failed to whack, my opinion of the official probably would drop a little, depending on a lot of other factors, too.
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