Ok Hey everyone im matt this is my first post and im a basketball referee down under in australia. Hey some of u may not understand all of the fiba rules as most of u r probaly use to the american rules.

Well i was refereeing a under 15s game or it would probaly be a 9th grade game in USA. Moving on i thought i refereed the game all right but my partner had a bad game at one stage he called a charge on the player but clearly the defence was moving every where this was a horrible call and the coach and players where furious.

My other ref wouldnt tech the coach but she was destroying his self esteem i had to do something i had already had some trouble with this coach and i was ready to tech her so i did and she blew and i said to her " Coach ive had enough u have been on our back all game if u say one more word to me in that tone u will be out of here". She continued saying im a referee i no the rules swearing i ejected her. The game contiued on smoothly. After the game the assistant coach who hadnt said a word all game came up to me abusing swearing and yelling i said to her if u dont respect me i wont respect u and i walked away she put in a complaint on me and changed the whole story on tuesday i have to see my referees co ordonator about the complaint. What should i have done during the game did i handle it right.

Welcome,

Define moving? The defense can move and still take a charge, as long as they are not moving TOWARD the opponent at the point of contact.

You should help your partner, and that can include throwing a T, but sometimes it is best to get with your partner at some point and let him get his "self esteem" back by whacking the coach himself.

You should avoid using any, "Do this or else," comments when dealing with a coach. You want to set your boundary without the personal challenge.

Imagine where you'd be if you said, " I don't want to hear another word out of you coach, or it's a T," and they say, "You're right, I'm sorry." Now you either need to T them for an apology, or lose your credibility when it comes to your boundaries.

My last advice is to write down EVERYTHING that happened, and be as detailed as possible. Have your partner for the game do the same. If there was someone taping the game, that would not hurt either. Take all of that with you when you meet with your assignor.

In addition to blindzebra's advice, I'd suggest that, in the future, you write down what happened as soon as the ganme is over, whenever anything controversial / confrontational happened in the game. Your recollection of the facts will be freshest at that point.

Welcome aussie_ref,

Myself, I appreciate the FIBA rule set. You might find others here will make silly jokes about FIBA. But you are correct: the rule set I use is NFHS (Federation).

Did you get a chance to talk to the crew, during the game, but before all this happened, about how the game was progressing. During a timeout or at quarter- or half-time are great times to do just that - to communicate.

Be careful about giving statements like these. It sounds like an ultimatum, and what if she says to you, in 'that tone', "sorry, ref". Then you gotta toss her. Instead, maybe say something like, "Coach, everyone needs you to stay in the game. Please coach your players."

Leave the area and if she needs to respond, ignore her unless flagrant or it makes your job easy: such as she swears from across the court because now you're further away.

This is obviously justified. Being a referee when she's not coaching, she should know better about bench decorum. She was unprofessional.

Interesting. Why would she wait until the game was over before she said something to you? Maybe she had to think of her strategy, to come up with the story she will base her comments on. After a game is over, all I usually say to an abusive coach is, "Thank you coach. Good luck on your next game."

I used to be in the habit of writing a personal post-game report, but I have gotten away from that in the past 2 years. (Maybe it's time that I start again.) A post-game report will secure your account of the sitch while it is fresh in your mind. In fact, doing so after every game is good advice, but is paramount after a game with an incident.

I learned at a national camp that every call exists twice. At the time of the call itself, and either a couple of minutes earlier or a couple of minutes later. If you keep making calls when they first happened a couple of minutes earlier, you're doing alot of damage control and the amount of resources needed for game managemnt increases. This is how a game goes into the toilet, imo.

I would have communicated more with the crew and if necessary, tighten the game up.

[Edited by JugglingReferee on Dec 18th, 2004 at 11:23 AM]

Nah - no one here would do that. BTW - you misspelled FEEBLE. :p