Coaches Behavior

[Paintguru]

From my other referee life, we use the 3 p’s principal to determine if words or actions need to be dealt with by the referee, and I feel like they apply here as well. 1. Personal- Words or actions directed at a specific person; 2. Public- Can everyone hear it or just you and the offender; 3. Provacative- are the words or actions intended to incite further misconduct, raise the tension level, or show that obnoxious behavior is acceptable? If a fan’s, player’s, or coach’s behavior oversteps most/all of these bounds, then I think it is your duty as a referee to deal with it. As others have said, this doesn’t mean an immediate ejection, but perhaps having the site manager talk to the fan. Common sense rules here; we don’t want to be tossing every fan that utters a critical word, but we also don’t want to turn a blind eye to unacceptable behavior that will continue on to the next game and next referee.

[so cal lurker]

Originally Posted by Paintguru

but we also don’t want to turn a blind eye to unacceptable behavior that will continue on to the next game and next referee.

Just wanted to highlight this. And this is also part of the reason why "thicker skin" should vary by level. A varsity ref doing a middle school game should not have the same thick skin at that game. Not for himself, but for the newbie doing the next game.

I would be surprised (absent additional facts) to see a parent in the stands tossed for the comments in AremRed's post from any of the varsity high school games I've watched this year (quality tournaments, high level league, lots of people in the stands). But I would not in the least be surprised for those same comments to lead to a removal from a quiet middle school gym.

[griblets]

Originally Posted by so cal lurker

A varsity ref doing a middle school game should not have the same thick skin at that game. Not for himself, but for the newbie doing the next game.

That was my situation tonight. Middle school coach calls timeout specifically to call me over to discuss a couple of no calls. After giving him more explanation than I should have, then being informed we were not going to discuss any more calls the rest of the night, as I walked away he said "then call it both ways!" He found himself coaching from the bench the rest of the night. MS coaches don't always get experienced refs who will take care of inappropriate behavior in front of the kids. Maybe his behavior will be better the rest of the season.

To his credit, he sought me after the game to apologize.

[Stat-Man]

Originally Posted by griblets

That was my situation tonight. Middle school coach calls timeout specifically to call me over to discuss a couple of no calls. After giving him more explanation than I should have, then being informed we were not going to discuss any more calls the rest of the night, as I walked away he said "then call it both ways!" He found himself coaching from the bench the rest of the night. MS coaches don't always get experienced refs who will take care of inappropriate behavior in front of the kids. Maybe his behavior will be better the rest of the season.

I had something similar happen last year. Home team needs to foul to stop the clock and home player grabs the visiting team's ball handler from behind and appears to get a handful of jersey as well... an easy intentional foul call.

Home coach disagrees and calls time out to express his disagreement with me and ask about the call. Once it was obvious we were going in circles, I told him I'd be moving on and I left to go to my time out spot. He then followed me onto the court and said, "Well, I'm not!" That was one of my easier technical fouls to call .

Originally Posted by VaTerp

Are you or your partners using (the bench warning)?

I've used it once so far in a JV girls game to address inappropriate comments by players on the bench. As soon as I reported it and told the coach what happened, she addressed it immediately, and we didn't have a problem for the rest of the game.