J51969, I have a question: are you saying that you intrude in the team time out to comment to the coach, or give instruction to "address little things?" I hope not. That 30 or 60 seconds it too often too brief as it is, and that's
my time for me and my team. I'm not sharing it with a referee unless I only called the time out because we need a rest. All due respect, but if it's game tactics, coaches don't have time durring a time out to discuss
anything with a referee. That's not why we take a timeout, and it's not the intent or purpose of a time out.
No more than you would call an officials time out to discuss the play my team just ran with me. I
would find the intrusion into my time out unnecessary and exceptionally irritating. We are often not ready at first buzzer, I need those 10 more seconds. As far as I'm concerned just make the call. Make the 3 second call on my player, make the illegal screen call on my player. That's how they will learn. In practice when I do have time, I can bring up the calls and make sure the player understands.
When I was coaching at Jr High level, sometimes a referee would actually take a few seconds to explain to a kid what offensive 3 seconds in the lane is, or that a screen must be stationary, etc, etc. I realize it's my job to make sure my players understand how to play within the rules, but I appreciated when referee's took a moment to do that. I believe it's considerate to the bewildered kid who is clueless after the call, and that kind act aligns my own primary credo that it has to be about the kids first. But that's very different from intruding on a time out.
You did say, "used sparringly," so perhaps you use great discretion. I just though it important enough to say something. Because a new and impressionable referee could be reading this and think it's a good idea to just walk up and stick his nose into a team huddle and interrupt the coach. Bad idea.
If this is not what you were saying, or implying, I appologize.
