I had two situations that could have been "6 player technical". Two different games. The first one I whistled-up a T for, the second I did not. Both games are 10 and under leagues and both games are the first game of the season.

Sit. 1 - I am L opposite side, ball goes oob near mid court line in the front court next to blue bench. P6 for blue is standing next to coach. Throw-in next to coach. No substitution process took place. First year official signals direction, blue steps oob, hands ball to blue P5. Throw-in is completed. P6 is now in the game. After 5 seconds or so I notice that P6 is on the court and playing. I whistled-up the T. Told coach what had happened and talked briefly about bench decorum. Then shot two ....

I had noticed the player standing and intended to tell coach to have his players sit on the bench, but I was opposite side when the ball went oob. New Referee learned to count the players and the coach learned to keep a more organized bench. I could have stopped play and sent P6 back to the bench. I choose to enforce the penalty.


Sit. 2 - I am trail, opposite side. After having had a substituion issue and explaned the process to the coaches, a coach tells a player that he is to go sub-in and who to go sub-in for. The player jumps up and chases after the play. The coach, jumps up right after the player hollaring for him to wait, comeback here, ... . Coach catchs player and drags him back to the bench to explain how the substitution process works. Coach and P6 were not involved with the play. I choose to ignore the infraction. (I did not however, ignore the sight of the scenario. It was very amusing, and humors me just to think of it.)

I am justifying it after the fact, but, in this situation, the bench decorum was proper, P6 did not participate in the play, and the coach new what was happening immediately. I choose to not whistle-up a T.

God bless you for working with the little ones!

Usually at this level I try to focus on "teaching" as much as officiating during the game. Typically, any T's are reserved for jackass behavior by a coach or player and not so much for technical rules violations.

At this level, the penalty of a T for this violation has little impact to prevent further occurences. The kids simply do not know what they did to be wrong or they forget 5 minutes later. Keep trying to teach them and as they get older it will sink in, save your T.

I had to warn a girl last night for face guarding in a YMCA game. I stopped the game and gave a real brief rules clinic. Real brief. I've never actually seen it before, and girl was following her opponents face around with her hand. In a high school game, I'd have T'd it immediately.
I also issued a warning for crossing the OOB plane on a throw-in; even though the girl slapped the ball. I ruled that it was a warning. Team A's coach wasn't too happy, but I wasn't about to sit this girl down on this play when I could easily deal with it in an official manner (even though the poor mom at the score book had no idea what I was doing) without the T. I'd T'd this girl earlier in the game for arguing with me when I tried to get her to stop complaining about some contact I hadn't seen; and didn't have the heart to eject her on anything other than an unsportsmanlike T.
My decision, and she learned from it.