I recently worked a middle school game at the HL position. About halfway through the 4th quarter, a play ends toward the hash mark on my side of the field and I come in to give the spot. I’m standing about a yard outside the hash mark trying to clear some players off the ground. I look up and the head coach from the visiting team is standing about 2 feet away from me yelling that he had called a time out. The exchange went something like this:
Coach: “Why didn’t you give me my time out? I was yelling at you for a time out.”
Me: “Coach, I didn’t hear you call for a time out.”
Coach: “I was right in your ear yelling on the sideline. I called for a time out. You had to have heard me. I called for a time out.”
Me: “Coach, I didn’t hear you call for a time out.”
Coach: “I called for a time out. Why didn’t you give me a time out? You had to have heard me. I wanted a time out.”
Me: “Coach, there’s no need for that.”
(Probably not the best choice of words. I meant to say there’s no need for yelling, but I was caught off guard and a little shaken up.)
At this point the coach walks past me, past the hash mark, and is now about two yards on the other side of the hash mark from me. My white hat notices the commotion and starts heading toward us. The coach turns back to face me and yells 2 more times,
“I called for a time out. You heard me call for a time out.”
So I reach for my flag, hesitate for about a second, and then toss it in the air. My adrenaline is pumping and my heart is racing. As much as I hate to admit it, I was intimidated by the coach. He was a big guy, and he hadn’t stopped yelling since he first came onto the field. When I say ‘yelling’, I don’t mean he was just talking in an agitated tone – I mean he was yelling to the point that the veins in his head & neck looked like they were about to burst.
My white hat gets the players cleared out of the way and comes to me to ask me what I’ve got. This sounds funny in retrospect, but I say the first thing that comes to mind:
“I’ve got the coach coming onto the field and yelling in my face.” I explained to the WH what had happened, and told him that if he felt like the flag should be waived off, it was his call. My WH decided to make the flag a sideline warning instead of USC. He later explained that he didn’t want to add insult to injury by missing their time out request AND penalizing the team 15 yds.
After the game we discussed it briefly and all of the other 3 officials said they didn’t hear the coach call for a time out either. When I asked if I did the right thing by throwing the flag, my WH said I pretty much didn’t have a choice since the coach came all the way out on the field like that.
I’m only a second year official, and I’ve never flagged a coach before. In fact, this was only my second time ever tossing a flag for an unsportsmanlike conduct incident. I don’t have a bad temper, and I generally give coaches wide latitude with regard to what they say and do on the sideline.
My reason for posting this is to ask whether I handled the situation correctly, what you might have done in a similar situation, and if there are any pointers you can give for dealing with irate coaches.
Thanks in advance guys!