Condescending Coach

[Welpe]

Originally Posted by so cal lurker

I think some of these comments are for the referees but some are in fact for the kid.

When coaching kids baseball, I have said "great pitch" on a ball -- but not to challenge the umpire, but because a ball that just misses can be a great pitch.

Similarly, when coaching hoops, I have said "great defense" when a foul was called, not necessarily because I'm disagreeing with the foul, but because there are players who need to play closer to the foul line than they naturally do and as a coach I think it is completely OK that the player got the foul -- maybe it was close, maybe I didn't agree, but I want that kid to play with that level of aggression and not back off because he happened to get a foul.

To be clear, I'm *not* disagreeing that there are coaches who are using those comments to bait referees -- there *clearly* are. But not all of those comments have anything to do with referees. (And yes, I have this perspective as both a coach and a referee.)

This is precisely why I tend to ignore this comment unless it becomes persistent.

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by so cal lurker

I think some of these comments are for the referees but some are in fact for the kid.

When coaching kids baseball, I have said "great pitch" on a ball -- but not to challenge the umpire, but because a ball that just misses can be a great pitch.

Similarly, when coaching hoops, I have said "great defense" when a foul was called, not necessarily because I'm disagreeing with the foul, but because there are players who need to play closer to the foul line than they naturally do and as a coach I think it is completely OK that the player got the foul -- maybe it was close, maybe I didn't agree, but I want that kid to play with that level of aggression and not back off because he happened to get a foul.

To be clear, I'm *not* disagreeing that there are coaches who are using those comments to bait referees -- there *clearly* are. But not all of those comments have anything to do with referees. (And yes, I have this perspective as both a coach and a referee.)

I have the benefit of a coaching perspective in addition to an officiating perspective as well and think I'm pretty good at discerning the difference between genuinely talking to the kids and trying to talk to us through the kids.

If a coach says something like, "way to move your feet, or good defense" then asks me what the kid did wrong then I have no problem answering them.

Just last night I had a foul on a play where a post defender established LGP, moved his feet well laterally to maintain position, but then brought his arm down to contest the shot and made illegal contact on the shooters arm. Coach asked me what he did and I said "he was legal until he brought his arm down." And the coach conveyed that to the kid. That's good coaching and communication for coach, official, and player.

I had another play last week where I called a block on a play that I probably could have passed on. Coach, who I know pretty well, was a little excited and yelled "great job, Johnny." After reporting, coach says to me, "what did he do wrong?" I responded that the dribbler got his head and shoulders past the defenders torso at the time of contact. He politely disagreed, I said something else to him as I backed away, and he responded, "I hear ya but I'm just excited b/c we been trying to get him to move his feet like that since the summer." No issue, we all move on.

So again, I get the coaching perspective. Sometimes they are innocuous comments reacting to their players, which is why I usually ignore comments like this for the most part. But I've been doing this long enough to know the difference between that and talking to us through their players. And the coaches know the difference as well. They often like to act like they don't though. This, and when it becomes repetitive, is when we have problems.