"Captain, are you ready?"

[RookieDude]

Originally posted by zebraman
I never ask the coaches if they have any questions. One time my partner asked them if they had any questions. One coach said, "how ya' gonna call handchecking tonight?" The other coach asked, "are you gonna call their illegal screens?" IMHO, don't ask them if they have any questions.

Z

C'mon Z,
I would wager you are a good enough official that those little questions would have a more than adequate response from you.

i.e.
"Coach, we're gonna call um' as we see um'." or
"I guess you're gonna find out in a few minutes."

You don't have to get into a long debate over your philosophy of hand checks or screens or anything else for that matter. They will soon find out how the game is called...and adjust accordingly, if need be.

Usually the coach asks nothing...but, I did have one the other night ask if we were going to call the "flop". He stated that his player was called for one when his team was visiting another town using another officials' association.

We stated that the "flop" was a T this year and if a player does indeed "flop"...then that is the rule.
He asked a rule question, and we answered it.
We didn't say we would call it or not...just that it was a rule, and we would use our judgement to determine if it was a "flop" or not.