Assistant Coach on Floor During Free Throws
 

Mid second quarter, head coach gets his second direct technical and leaves the game. During the ensuing free throws, one of the assistant coaches stands to coach his players, standing about 5-7 feet onto the floor with them in a huddle while the free throws are being shot.

The head coach's behavior had escalated things quite a bit over the course of the game, and so I decided to go to the huddle in between free throws and give the assistant coach a warning and ask him to sit on the bench for the remainder of the game.

The AC proceeded to give me major attitude about this and that and the other while standing his ground, taking the opportunity to tell me what he thought about me running his friend. I reminded him one more time that he had no coaching box and repeated violation of the rule would result in an additional technical.

He said this and that and the other as he slowly, very slowly, made his way back to the bench, telling me to "just ref the game."

In hindsight this feels like a miss and I wish I had simply T'd him up after he didn't comply with my first warning but I would welcome your thoughts.

I usually gave the offending team until the end of the technical free throws before I would come over to address the coaching box restriction, just more or less as cooling off period.

As far as the conversation, there were times when I let coaches know this was not a 2-way conversation. I would say what I would had to say, cut off any responses, then walk away.

Seat Belts Save Lives ...
 

Young’uns should note that once a coach is “seat belted” he is still allowed to stand up for certain reasons: to request a timeout or signal his players to request a timeout; to leave the coaching box to confer with the table to request a timeout fix a correctable error, or a timing, scoring or alternating-possession mistake; to replace or remove a disqualified or injured player or player directed to leave the game; during a charged timeout, or the intermission between quarters and extra periods; to spontaneously react to an outstanding play by a team member or to acknowledge a replaced player.

Irritant ...
 

If I call the technical foul, I have my partner address the coaching box restriction, and vice versa.