Handling this coach:

[UNIgiantslayers]

I have been quick to pull the trigger whacking coaches in the past, so I'm trying to reign that in a bit to be more approachable this year. This is the situation.

VG Tuesday night. A1 is on the top block during B's free throw and gets the rebound twice on missed FTs. Coach B is going crazy saying she can't do that, she's leaving early. I was T on both of these, so I just tell him she's fine to leave as soon as the ball leaves shooter's hand and he says it's a new rule that just came out. I think he was confused with the semi-circle rule? No idea what he was talking about. I told him again, no coach- she can leave when it leaves the shooter's hand. He keeps going on and on and is yelling, even takes a timeout to ask the crew about it. R goes over to him and thinks he's talking about coming from outside the 3 pt line (that's how succinct this coach was), and tells him that she cannot enter until ball hits rim. So now the guys starts giving it to me every time up and down the court. We talked at half, and none of us were 100% sure what his problem was and exactly what he thought happened. Tried to find game tape, but can't find it anywhere. First time working with partners, and they were both good officials, but I felt like it was easy to tell we didn't know each other's habits and tendencies, and this was definitely a situation that made me a little uncomfortable because I didn't know either well enough to know if I should get in there with the coach and them when they talked to him during the TO. I chose to avoid him because he was frustrating me. It was not my partner's fault at all, I just want to reiterate that.

My question is how much are you going to take from this coach because of a mistake on your partner's part and/or miscommunication? I told him it was over and we were done and he kept going on and on every time down the court. This happened 3-4 times back down the court. A much younger (read: 1 year) me would have whacked him right away, but I understood his frustration because of the miscommunication or mistake, or whatever the #$% it was.

I was glad I didn't whack him in the end because he was fine the rest of the game and his team got blown out, but it is one that I sort of regret not whacking for being such a prick about it.

I'm also looking for feedback of how I could have better handled this situation overall, what you would have done differently, etc. Thanks, in advance-- I really appreciate all of the help I've gotten on this forum over the past year.