Quote:
Originally Posted by so cal lurker
As someone who hates coaches calling time outs: With players only calling (as it was when I played) it's the responsibility of the players to get the official's attention, not the responsibility of the official to find the player. The official shouldn't care or be paying attention to what the coach wants.
From the comfort of the stands, it seems to me the coach TO is destructive -- coaches become irate that they haven't been seen and referees seem to have much more difficulty telling "which came first" with respect to violations or held balls when it involved a coach TO than a player -- I suspect because they are often in opposite directions. (And it may also be that it often looks like the referee got it wrong because folks in the stands don't see when the coach asked.)
Give the game back to the players -- permit fewer TOs and only let players call, er, request them. YMMV. (Heck I also wouldn't mind going back to the rule that there can't be TO after 80% of a count has expired, though I imagine that one was a nightmare to administrate, especially when the request went to an official not responsible for the count at the time.)
|
I do 50-60 varsity games a year and this simply isn't a problem in games I work. All my games are 3-person, however, and maybe this is a bigger problem in 2-person games.
But I think you're just kicking the can here -- you won't notice the kid quickly enough, you'll still have the difficulty of knowing which came first, etc.
As someone who's worked a ton of games under both systems, I much prefer giving the head coach the ability to call a timeout. Typically I know when he/she is going to want one and I have an eye in his direction. Doesn't mean I lose track of what happens on the floor, not at all.