Reminds me when I was about 5 years in and I met an official with about 20+ years experience who was saying how much coaches loved him. I asked him why that was and we were talking about T's given etc. He told me that in the last 5 years he probably one gave out about 3 T's.

I told him that coaches loved him because they could walk all over him. I then walked away. Ran into him a few years later and he didn't have much to say except that he thought I was an @#$@#. I told him I wish he applied that same logic to the games he worked.

If as an official you don't want to ruffle feathers then you shouldn't ref.

Fixed, thanks!

Yeah I agree this is likely what happened. Obviously if the coach starts in on the officials then they gotta take care of business but if he's going nuts on his team then it's a more delicate situation.

Either way, I'm not letting the other coach appeal for punishment for the other guy. A quick "I'll take care of it" usually works for me.

That's a great story. Refs hold grudges like no other.

He did receive disciplinary action, I'll see if I can get the details. A large issue with the assigning Association & the MHSAA was he talked to the press and provided quotes for publication. He basically compounded his first bad decision with another.

My buddy, Kev, had never reffed with either of them. To make matters even more uncomfortable, Strong Sr. was reffing with his son and those two had driven there together. When Kev and Strong Jr. walk into the officials room after the game, Sr. is sitting there because he needed his ride home. Kev told me nothing was said and he got out of there fast. He'll never forget that game for all the wrong reasons.

It was the losing coach who was out of the coaching box and making a arse of himself. The officials (all of them) screwed up by not penalizing the coach for repeatedly being out of the coaching box. They obviously let too much go for too long in this game before this issue came up.

This official really screwed up though in more ways than one.

In addition to his on court actions he was in clear violation of the MHSAA's media policy by commenting to a reporter about the incident. That is very clearly frowned on by the MHSAA and can (should) result in sanctions from the MHSAA.

This official may be a great official on the court (questionable by what I read about the game), but he certainly needs to do a better job with his handling of people.

I agree with the rest of the commenters that I would not be working with him and would decline assignments if he was listed as a partner, or I would ask to be switched off the game.