Should I have whacked this coach?

[so cal lurker]

Originally Posted by BryanV21

The other night during a game, while I was the center and standing in front of a team's bench, the coach said to one of his players "don't foul the second time, they'll see that. They didn't see the first foul, but they will see the second."

Which led to the following exchange...

Me: (without turning to look at the coach) "Coach, don't do that."
Coach: "Do what?"
Me: "Say something like that right in front of me."
Coach: "I can say what I want to my players."
Me: "Not right in front of me you can't."

This ended things because the ball was stolen and went on a fast break the other way.

I don't care whether the coach is yelling or talking in a normal tone of voice. I'm just as concerned about WHAT they say as I am in HOW they say it.

Sounds to me like you were over sensitive on this. It's no secret that refs miss calls and when they do, and the victim often get caught retaliating. Unless there was more context to this, I don't see this as a coach criticizing so much as getting his player to play smarter. As a coach, I might say something very much like this to a player, even if I didn't think thevref missed a foul -- I would want to change the player's behavior, and to do that it doesn't matter whether the first foul was a foul or not if the player feels it was.