Crew loyalty v. fairness to coaches (kinda long)

[Back In The Saddle]

I was just thinking again about a situation I witnessed earlier this year. I sat in on the pre-game and post-game with the varsity crew, which is how I know some of what the officials were thinking.

It was a close game and the visiting team has a howler monkey coach. He's all over one official in particular, and getting near the line. In an attempt to not T the coach, the official adopts a policy of not talking to that coach. This just angers the coach further, BTW. The coach, of course, then loudly demands to talk to the official's partner.

After a foul call this coach finally crosses the line and gets a T from the first official. During the reporting of the foul and the T, the other official has been talking to the home teach coach about the call and now goes to talk to the visiting team coach and attempts to calm him down.

After the game, while his partner was in the shower, the first official asked me what I thought about it, and I said that in my opinion his partner should have never gone to talk to the visiting team coach after the T, that I felt it was disloyal. He admitted that he had felt the same way.

When the other official returned, he joined the discussion and told us that what he was trying to do was give both coaches equal time. As he put it, "I let the home teach coach have a piece of me, I figured I'd better let the other coach have a piece as well."

I can see how both viewpoints could be valid. While I would be inclined to back my partner by not talking to the coach, the second official is well-respected with a lot of state championships under his belt. Translated that means: knows a LOT more about dealing with coaches than I.

My question is this: which do you think is more important, crew loyalty or giving both coaches equal time? Does it have to be one or the other? If you had been on the crew that night, what would you have wanted to have happen?