I've never had it happen to me directly, of course by the same token at the level I work, I could care less if coaches and captains shake my hand or not. It's appreciated if they do, but if they don't, it's moreso because neither one of us took the first step to offer our hand. At the non-varsity level, it seems most officials could care less about having the pregame meeting with coaches and captains, and vice versa. It is what it is.
Now, I'm with the majority of those on the forum. If the coach wants to act like a dipwad during the game, he'll be treated as such. I give one chance for the coach to correct his or her behavior and that's it. I am usually inclinced to serve up tea before I cut off communications with a coach however. I can only think of 1 time where I was "done" with a coach. 1st half of a tough BJV game, I made a call and I could tell the coach was curious why I called what I did. He didn't ask me directly, but I could tell by his body language he wanted an explanation. When I started to give him one, he apparently didn't like it, because he told me that he didn't want to hear anything else I had to say tonight.
Second half, he decides now he is ready to ask me about some calls during the game. My response was probably longer than it needed to be, but in no certain words, I told him that if he didn't want me talking to him in the first half, then I wasn't going to talk to him in the second half either, and that if he had any questions for me, that he could communicate with me through my partner, but that was it. Message delivered and received, on my way out after the game he stopped me and apologized for his actions in the first half. I told him that I understand how coaches work and that I'm more than willing to communicate with him, but when you tell me during a game that you're done with me, then you can't go back on it, that it applies for the rest of the game.
All ended well in this situation as he got the answers he was looking for and we left peacefully. I've had him several times since and we've developed a good rapport with each other. Sometimes you have to be firm but fair to a coach to get your message across. If the coach knows what he's doing, he'll receive the message. If he doesn't, he probably won't be coaching long.
|