[Rich]

I came the closest tonight to running a head varsity coach in the entire time I've been here.

To set the stage:

Visiting team has 1 win and most of the losses have not been close. We greet the coaches at 1:30 before the game here, so about 1:45 we start the walk across. No visiting team or coaches. No biggy, we'll get the home coach first.

About 30 seconds left, the visiting team arrives. Coach does a drive by -- shakes my hand, tells me his players are dressed legally (it's a required question here) and doesn't introduce himself and doesn't give me time to. No biggy, but pretty consistent with his personality.

30 seconds into the game, partner calls the first foul of the game. Coach is way out of his box. Partner gives the courtesy of asking the coach to be in his box. He gives partner attitude, saying he gets 14 feet and he has no room at the bench area. Partner points to the box and repeats request. Coach goes there. Partner swears he hears the coach laughing at him, but ignores this (like a good partner should if he's not sure).

We made it to halftime, although the coach came close once when I called a player control foul on his 6'6" kid who has little to no skills and uses his free arm to clear space every time he gets the ball in the lane. On the second player control foul I call on him, we come down the floor and I hear the coach, "Are you serious? Do you really think that's a strong call?" and various other whining. By then, I was pretty much done interacting with him. Had the ball not been turned over, this soliloquy probably would've ended in a technical. It's a rout at halftime and we were treated to the coach screaming his head off at his players since his locker room was next to ours. If any coaching was done, we didn't hear it.

Third quarter: Home team steal the ball and it *looks* to the visiting bench like the home player double dribbles, but the ball was actually knocked out of the players hands. It was a legal play. Ball comes down, and as the home player is setting up a 3-point shot (I'm the lead, opposite), I see the visiting coach at least 6 feet out of his box in front of the table wildly gesturing and I heard him scream at the table, "Where did you get these guys?" It was so over the top I whacked him while the shot was in air (and it was in the air as my hand was up for the 3-point attempt). Ball goes through the bucket. 3-pointer and a technical foul.

After we shot the free throws, the visiting coach requests a full timeout and comes out onto the court and summons me over to the bench. I told him that he needed to get back to his bench, that I would come talk to him, but I won't be summoned anywhere. But I went over, cause not going over would've resulted in him getting himself ejected.

When I get there, he doesn't say anything about the technical but instead asks about the shot counting. I told him it was in the air and it counts. He said, "I'll show you a replay. That whistle blew 3 seconds before the shot...."

At this point, I stopped him. I told him, "That's enough about that. You just got a technical foul and you are extremely close to being run out of this gym. Getting yourself ejected here would be a big mistake."

Normally I would not be in favor of talking like this, but this guy was a millimeter from a second technical foul and, quite frankly, it was up to him. I was done trying to keep him in the game -- it was completely up to him.

I think he knew I was serious, cause he actually was silent for a few seconds. I then said, "Remember you have no coaching box now, you're on the bench" and I walked away. It was the end of him running his mouth for the night, although we had a player technical later in the game (like coach, like players) and we had to call a few more fouls than usual to keep the game from getting seriously rough.

After the game: Even more screaming in the locker room. Must be a joy to be on that team.

One more for the week.