strange/sad situation in game last night
 

Varsity game. Home AD takes a call on his cell phone. While on the phone AD works his way over to visitor bench and hands his phone to head coach. She is shocked, but takes the call behind the bench. Brief conversation, coach visibly upset, gives a "your in charge" look and hand motion to asst. coach and leaves gym. Asst. does great job rest of game. Head coach returns to bench 10 minutes later, sits down and has Asst. coach finish the game standing up. Turns out there was a death of someone closely associated with the team. Unsure if it was sudden, or was expected. Apparently she shared news with team shortly after game, as girls crying and hugging. I thought it was handled as well as could be by bench, did not affect play on the court, working officials not even aware it was going on, except change in HC.

Sadly, all I could think of was that if NevadaRef was calling that team wouldnt get any more timeouts.

No, he'd whack the coach for leaving the box or for using the cell phone.

That's unnecessary.

Curious... How many would not allow the assistant coach to stand? At the time the official doesn't know the situation, so it's not like you'd be lenient because of the nature of the problem.

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But true.

As described, the situation obviously involved something unusual. If I had to respond, I might first ask what's going on, rather than jump to conclusions.

+1

also for context--
 

The game had had excellent sportsmanship by both team, both coaches behaving themselves before the phone call, and continued with the acting head coach, plus game was not close. Those two factors would have made ref jumping into the Bench feng shui likely seem a bit heavy handed.

We can joke about it, but it's fact. The rules ARE the rules ARE the rules.

There was a time when coaches HAD to remain seated for the entire game. Coaches still coached. Games were still won and lost. Oh the simpler days.... I coached at Pa. schools that still had the rule and it was hard, you could not even show emotion on good plays or bad ( as far as leaving your seat)...

As the saying goes, use the rules to solve problems, not create them. No rule covers the situation in the OP, where an unexpected--and tragic--occasion arose.

Not there and don't have details but kinda surprised that the AD did not simply wait until after the game. Was there an urgency/emergency? Doesn't seem like it as head coach returned.

There was no urgency, the person in question was dead. Passing the information along during the game does nothing to change that. The information could have been given once the game was over. Bad decision on the ADs part.

Jeez, that's heartless and cold. But we can't let something like a death interfere with the game.

Maybe it was someone the team expected to be there--another AC, the team's shooting coach, mascot, former HC, or spiritual advisor. What is the sense of second-guessing the AD, who was probably as stunned and shocked as the HC was and made a decision under that stress?

Really? I mean....really???

If the AD got a call with that kind of information and the caller wanted the HC to know, then you tell the HC. He absolutely made the right decision.

Waiting to pass news like that does no good in the digital age. If the AD doesn’t pass the phone, someone will be discussing it two rows back five minutes later. If I’m the HC, that’s not how I want to first hear of tragic news.


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Wow the stupidity of the internet is starting to spread here too. "its all about the kids"

True the person is dead. But often there are other friends/family members who need support, which is absolutely time critical.

About 10 years ago, I was in the stands at an NCAA D1 game. As is the case at lot of places, the students had seating there on the base line. While play was at the other end of the floor, a foul was called, and while the ref was reporting the foul to the table, I was shocked to see one of the students run out to half court yelling at the ref as he reported the foul. It turned out that just next to the student seating, an on duty police officer was having a heart attack, and the student was trying to get somebody's attention. Play was stopped for about 15 minutes while the medics tended to the officer, and then, after a short warm up period, play resumed at the point of interruption.

I am sure the ref was shocked to see a student run out on the floor yelling at him. And, in hindsight, while the student probably would have been better off not running onto the court and instead finding another officer to get the guy help, the truth is that when something like that happens so suddenly and unexpectedly, no one is thinking clearly! I was glad to see that nobody seemed to get upset about the way it went down.

Most importantly, I found out that the officer made a full recovery.