Hello to all,

I am the girls BB coordinator at a medium sized middle school. The quality of play in our league is pretty good, but not as good as our parents think it is. Over the past few years I have noticed a disturbing trend. I know that this is nothing new to you guys, but it really is starting to irritate me as a coach. The problem is this...the parents of my players are fairly knowledgeable about the game, some are quite knoledgeable about the finer points of the rules.

However, I get tired of hearing parents in the stands yelling things that are flat out wrong from the stands at the officials. I have officiated soccer and softball for quite some time, so I am sensitive to the abuse that misinformed parents can heap on officials. I want to do everything I can to eliminate that from my program.

I have seen threads similar to this in the past, so I'm sorry if this is a repeat for some. But what I am looking for are some calls and situations that you officials find that parents usually don't understand, or, they think they understand, but really have it screwed up. Perhaps if I can shed a little light on some of these misunderstood rules and situations in my pre-season parent meeting, I can save the officials some abuse, and save me some embarrassment.

I am not naive enough to think that this will solve all my parent-yelling problems. I do have a good group of well-meanin, supportive parents. They just don't always know what they are talking about. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

I applaud your effort and wish there were more out there like yourself. I am sceptical however, regarding the success you will have with your effort. However, here are a few off of the top of my head...

1) 3 Seconds and the philosopy behind calling it. Also, once the ball is shot team control is lost and there is no 3 seconds.

2)The fundamental of what constitutes a foul and how it relates to "over the back" (In realty, no such thing. Most times this is a pushing foul). Just because a player is in back of another and gets the rebound by jumping straight up or reaching over the top of an oppenant without touching the other player is not a foul. There must be contact.

3)Over and Back violation. What is front court status. What constitutes back court status. All three points have to cross the division line. No back court on a throw-in

4)Offensive foul. The defensive player does not have to be stationary to take an offensive foul. They can be moving latterally or give ground, just can't move forward. If they beat a player to the spot, even though they were moving it is an offensive foul.

Those are the ones that parents give the most grief about in my experience. Good Luck!

This might a good place for Tony to post his list of basketball myths.

Go to my web site, I have a good list of misconceptions there. A good idea is to have an official come to a booster club meeting and give a talk about some of these misconceptions. You cannot totally stamp out ignorance but you can educate enough that you can't tell there is ignorance. http://www.users.qwest.net/~rtimothy3/misconce.htm

[Edited by Tim Roden on Oct 5th, 2004 at 11:43 AM]

I second what BBJ said - and also wish you good luck!

Having coached CYO GS/MS for 10 years before putting the stripes back on, I know what you're up against. In my experience the majority of the parents were fine, it was only a few that got out of control - usually the ones that thought they knew more about the rules than they really did.

We held a mandatory pre-season parents meeting (if at least one parent doesn't attend, your kid won't play). These some things that I used to emphasize - hope you find them useful:
1. Strong committment to ASEP philosophy - kids first, winning second
2. Be positive - make it fun.
3. Your kids will emulate your example, so set a good one. Remember that comments you might get away with as a spectator will get them penalized as a participant.

Good luck!

This is almost so obvious that you might overlook it, but even before going into details about how this is called and what rule covers that, I'd spend some time talking to the parents about the paramount importance of sportsmanship. That means rooting for their team, not against the opponents, and showing respect to all participants---players, coaches, administrators, and (above all!) officials.

First of all, I think the most important thing for parents to understand is that we know more than they do. If they can just not assume that they are the experts, it will help a lot. There's nothing wrong with not being the expert. There's nothing gained by being a "false" expert.

Secondly, parents need to know that the rules change from level to level, and even from league to league, sometimes. What they see on TV is a lot different from what's on the floor in front of them, and that's okay. Furthermore, the announcers on TV don't even get much right. They often misinterpret something they've heard, or just willfully refuse to learn.

I'd also suggest that you find someone with lots of "people skills" to plant in the stands and sort of gently correct the group. The right person can make a lot of difference in this way.

I've been coaching for almost 20 years now - mostly HS and HS AAU. About 8 or 9 years ago, I started bringing out officials to give a brief talk after one of our early season practices. It was such a hit, that I decided to expand on the idea and make it a regular early season thing.

We now have a D1 women's basketball official who comes out every year at about our third or fourth team practice to talk and field questions for about an hour and a half. Attendance by parents at this practice is mandatory. I can't think of anything better than to quell parental misconceptions about the game and how it's called. So now none of my parents yell out "over the back" - of course they still yell out "hey, that was a push!" Oh well, it's a start...

More importantly, it is incredibly valuable and insightful to the players and to me as a coach to hear an official explain what they are focusing on. We even run a few drills and when the whistle blows, we'll get a very detailed explanation by an official in a non-threatening environment. It allows for an even handed exhange of ideas without the pressure to resume play and it builds excellent relations and respect among all the parties involved.

Anyhow, I really believe you would do well to schedule this kind of a meeting involving parents, but I'd suggest you let respected officials field the questions and the answers instead of yourself. See if you can contact the local association for availability. Or maybe the league can point you in the right direction.

You can't travel if you don't have the ball and just because it's ugly doesn't mean they carried the ball or traveled.

The parents from the teams I coach have made several comments about how much more they enjoy watching their kids play now that they've received some basic explainations of rules and their enforcement by most refs. Now they get a chuckle out of the other teams who ALWAYS think their team is getting the short end of EVERY call.

"Guarding is the act of legally placing your body in the path of an offensive opponent. THERE IS NO MINIMUM DISTANCE REQUIRED between the guard and opponent...." 4-23-1

So stop yelling "get him off” I'm not going to penalize great defensive work.

Similar to "Over the back," there is no such thing as "Reaching in" Without contact, there is no foul.