[JRutledge]

Based on what I am reading, we are assuming a lot of things. We are assuming the partner clearly saw the first confrontation. We are assuming that the partner even knows what the coach is complaining about. And if all the coach said to the partner is, "Can I talk to you?" I would either say "no," or "later" or even "I am not discussing his play coach" or ignore if I was away of a previous interaction where my partner had enough. If the coach is not yelling at the top of their lungs and just being a jerk, I tend to ignore those coaches. All I am going to do is screw it up by responding in most situations. He is not going to like my answer and it will do nothing more than make the situation much worse as I do not placate coaches with BS. I tell them what I know and move on.

And the dynamic of this issue that I am talking about as I have done this 18 years, but I am a playoff official and in many cases well known in some circles and not known well in others. What that means is I can go into places and certain coaches know my background as a higher level official, because they have either seen me in tournaments they play in or in the post season which gives you more cache to have your words believed or respected. A lot of this is who you are and where you are. And because our games are assigned by assignors of conferences and tournaments, we often have to deal with their positions on how to handle things. And that also means that depending on whom the official is the coach has a complaint about, sometimes the assignors well make it clear they are not dealing with a newer guy or one of their more respected officials. And you say you have never had anyone question your Ts, well I have or have been asked to why a certain situation was T'd or why a certain situation was handled after the fact. It has never got me in trouble, but yes the circumstances have been up for debate or further review. It does not happen often, but it happen this past season and I did not even give a T, but was involved in the handling the situation afterwards and the coach seemed more upset with me then the guy that gave him the T. And I did what I had done 100 times previously when I was the non-T'ing official, but someone it did not go over well.

This is why I do not like the attitude that the "stop sign" gives the same message for all. I have been in many situations where I have made my point and no one knew I got in the coach's behind about their behavior and drew a clear line. My partner's knew and the coach knew. And usually we are not surprised as a crew who the azzhole coaches are or what they have done to other officials in previous games. It is not uncommon we as a crew have a plan before the game starts if that coach gets out of hand and how we will deal with them.

And that is why I said it matters what attributes you have like what race, gender, height, experience, athletic attributes you might be, just to name a few might things that could help you or hurt you if you are dealing with a coach that does not respect one of those attributes you might have. I worked with a couple of female officials just this summer and it did not matter what call my partner made, the male coaches were not having it. And those coaches did not come out and openly say, "I do not think she can officiate because she is a woman."

For me it does not work, so if ignoring a coach upsets them when I was not involved in a play, that is their issue, not mine.

Peace