[Pantherdreams]

Easiest and most effective in my experience for communication has been the following (keeping in mind we are talking about most reasonable proffessional adults not your howler babies):

1) Preventative steps - If I can see a coach is trying to talk or get an official communicate I get to them as soon as I reasonably can to see what it is up. I may even check in after timeouts or breaks to see if there is anything they need clarification on or need to talk about. If they know that I will seek them out to talk then don't have to go shouting to get my attention they know they will get a chance to get me if there is something important.

2) "Coach I hear what you are saying, we will talk about it/look for it."

3) "Do you have a question? I can give you my best answer to a question but I can't stand here and debate . . ."

4) Create very clear standards of expected behaviour. Once you've been given you say if you don't move on, or if you are too demonstrative and adverserial or if you are clearly out of control we will take care of buisness. If they know that you will talk to them and that you will answer questions and work as a crew so long as they stay within the expectations things tend to work out.

I don't throw a lot of T's but I think it is primarily because we officiate in a small region so coaches know us all and what our standards are, they also know if they talk and question at appropriate times/ways we will reciprocate.