Quote:
Originally Posted by Snaqwells
My problem with the stop sign is that it comes across as dismissive. We talk all the time about how coaches should not be allowed to show us up, yet this signal does that very thing to the coach. Geese and Ganders come to mind here.
I've had much better success speaking quietly to them and letting them vent (appropriately), and I've witnessed good veteran officials do the same.
If your association wants you to do it so you have something the video will catch, so be it. I don't need that, as my report (every T gets one here) will be good enough for my assigners.
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The stop sign IS dismissive, and that is the point!
By rule, the coach does not have a right to display dissent to officials calls. Coaches also ARE NOT tasked with administering the game and the rules! He is there to COACH his players. I fail to understand where coaching his players include the right to yell at officials.
The stop sign is not appropriate for every situation, just like talking quietly with the coach isn't appropriate for every situation. It is another tool for the tool bag that "good veteran officials" will learn how to use at the right time. I cannot tell you when/where you should use the stop sign, but in my area, it has been a HUGELY EFFECTIVE warning to coaches, and since officials have started using it in the last few year or so, it has helped manage coaches away from ejections.
Hey, in baseball, once that hand comes up, that IS the 1st technical. My next action is ejection!
As to comments about "record it in the book". I will utilize the book in any way I see fit to keep track of warnings. In our area, we are asked to have the book record delay of game warnings. I don't find it a stretch that we can use it to record a warning to a coach. Also, as I learned in baseball, doing this ALSO has a positive effect on the coach settling down, because in his mind, this has become an "official" warning. He knows he is going to have a hard time arguing his eventual ejection when there is a paper trail of is sins on the court.
Does any of this work for every coach? Nope! That is why there is the technical (personally, I think in basketball that if you have issued a stop sign warning, or any kind of verbal warning to a coach, next step should be ejection...that gives it BITE!). No technique works every time, nor is every technique the end all solution for every situation. Again, it is another tool to use. Officials much better than anybody posting here have deemed it useful, and most organizations have bought on. Not my place to question that.
I have found over the years that as I become more open minded about using these techniques, I gain better outcomes.
I will admit though, I am no fan of in NFHS baseball where you can restrict a coach to the bench. I haven't heard where it has worked more often than not. In my informal polling of umps doing sub-varsity games (they seem to be the guys that use this "tool" the most) most complain that the coach still does what he was doing before, just from the bench now. Of course, I tell the umps that they will probably need to explain to the coach that they cannot do that anymore, but that is offset by why should I be informing the coach of his rights? He has a rule book too!
So, my point is, yeah, I have dug in my feet on a suggested mechanic that I don't feel works too well. I have to admit though, a few guys I have talked to LIKE the ability to restrict a coach to the bench in baseball, and use it quite a bit when appropriate. I find other ways to manage the coach. Maybe one day I will give it another shot.
So, the stop sign just may not be for everybody. But, if it isn't for you, don't write it off!