Coach Running Up the Score

[SMEngmann]

My two cents are that we are the game officials, not the coaches, and we should not tell a coach how to do his job. Just as we don't want coaches questioning our judgement on the calls that we make, we should grant them the same courtesy by just doing our job. That's not to say that we should be unaware of the 30+ point lead teams that press, on the contrary, as Clark said, we should be more aware of a potential situation when tempers start to flare. Coaches all have reasons for doing what they do, and they need to face their fellow coaches at coaches meetings, so if one coach has a problem, that's the forum that it should be dealt with in. We need to be aware and recognize, but it shouldn't impact how we call the game.

On another similar note, some of the youth leagues that I've worked in employ "no press" rules after a certain lead has been reached. Personally, I think these rules need to be either re-vamped or done away with, because they allow the trailing team to keep pressing, while prohibiting the winning team from doing so, creating an unfair advantage. At the grammer/middle school level, depending on ability, I'd like to see pressure either done away with, or have some sort of a mercy rule in which the losing coach "throws in the towel" and neither team would then be allowed to press for the remainder of the game.

As for sportsmanship, we need to enforce the rules on the court, and not extend personal feelings to the coaches, and also not allow our judgements of a coach's strategy from impacting the game in a negative way. I think changing calls and being overly punitive to a team based on their strategy is wrong. I also think I would take a strong look at whether the losing coach is making a mockery of the game by instructing his players to hand the ball to the other team on throw ins against the press. I think it's a means to an end, but it's unsportmanlike in its own right and could cause the game to greatly deteriorate as both sides get more steamed.