I jinxed myself today by insinuating I was good at game management. Tonight I proved I still have some tough nights and that every situation can't really be anticipated.

I'm going to post this in a number of parts. Here's Part I:

Boys varsity about 80 miles from the ranch.

The home coach is one of those 35-year coaches who apparently rides everyone who he hasn’t had working for him for 20 seasons. So I was fresh meat tonight. Not part of the story, but an interesting bit of background information. Duane, when you read this, you've whacked this guy when we worked together there last time, I believe.

We take the court, as required, at 20:00 on the clock. I’m the referee, so in the 2-man system, I am supervising the visiting team. At about the 17-minute mark, the center for the visiting team goes in, goes above the rim, and puts the ball in the basket. It’s close, but in my opinion, it’s not a dunk. No forceful action and never even came close to the rim (I recognize that rim isn't in the definition of dunk, but it does provide an indicator of how "forcefully" the ball was put in the hoop. (Note: My partner agreed later in the pregame when we talked that it wasn't a dunk. He happened to turn towards my basket right as "it" happened.)

Well, the home coach thought it was a dunk and start jumping up and down in front of his bench. Now, mind you, we are 17:00 before the warmup period ends.

I decide to talk to the coach before he has an aneurysm and do some preventive officiating as well. I walked over to the coach and told him that it wasn’t a dunk.

He starts in and after a brief listen I stop him (mainly because I have other business to attend to) and tell him that we aren’t starting the game that way on something like that.

I then go the player and talk to him briefly and told him to knock it off and then go to the coach (I’ve had a few of his games and he’s pretty reasonable) and told him his player’s put me in a hole already and to please tell him to knock it off. The coach goes right to the player and talks to him.

I then go back across the court and we get the captains for the meeting at about 13:00.

After the captains’ meeting, I go to the table as required to check the books, brief the scorer/timer and check the game ball for proper shape/air. As I’m checking the home book, the home coach comes over to the table with a rule book turned to the definition of “dunk” and starts in again about the pregame incident. At that point I say, “Coach, that wasn’t a dunk — you really want to start out this way?” The coach said, “I want you to follow all the rules" and throws the book on top of the scorebook I’m checking and walked away.

That's how my night started. I should've stayed home, I guess. Please feel free to comment, guess what happened next, etc. I'll post more tomorrow. I need to contemplate a few reports I have to write before I finish the story and try to get some constructive feedback.

[Edited by Rich Fronheiser on Feb 2nd, 2005 at 01:39 AM]

Rich,

You did great. The "spirit and intent" of that rule is to protect the equipment and one of those little "baby dunks" (if it was even that) is nothing, IMHO. With a rim rattler, we have no choice, but you had a choice and used good common sense. Telling the kid to knock it off was good too. Pray tell, what happened after that?

Z

I cant wait for the rest of this. Seriously.

Of course, if "filling out reports" means in your jurisdiciton what it means in mine then it means you not only whacked him, you tossed him and have to fill out that paperwork.

Clark

Great detective work, Clark. My only question is, can we tell just from what's posted so far how much, if any, of the game that coach saw?

Let's put it this way.

I'd have started the game shooting free throws.:D

Why do I have a funny feeling they started the game without a head coach.

Which would mean the board would read:

Clark

However, I did say it was a tough night. More later.

Rich, is your day job in marketing, promotions, Harry Potter book publisher or something? ARGH!

I know what happened. You noticed his player had 00 on his jersey but was listed as 0 in the book....

Nice Job Rich
 

Rich so far so good, I see nothing wrong with what you have done in the prologue to the story.

"may not attempt to influence an official's decision."

Correct me if I'm wrong, the spirit of the no dunking in warmups rule is so that we don't end up with a broken goal and now we have a postponed game. How does home coach think the described stitch is going to break the goal? If he wants you to go by the rule book, does he want the 3 seconds call every 4th trip down the court?

BTW, this is the first time I've heard of a coach with a rule book.

Tolerance
 

I think you handled it by the book. (And exactly the way I would have handled it) I don't care what the coach says, if I don't say its a dunk, then... it's not a dunk.

The rule does start with grasp the basket then goes on to dunk or stuff. Also, isn't this rule put in place to keep a player from getting hurt before the game begins or to keep from tearing up a goal before the game etc.,

However, the coach was looking for trouble and I'm sure before the night was over he was in trouble.

I wouldn't have started the game with a T, but he would have a very very tight leash the rest of the night.

Thanks
David

Is that the spirit and intent of the rules? I thought it may have had something to do with intimidation.

Writing of such (this probably has been covered under another thread - sorry if it has), has anyone been told that the teams have to stay within their half of the court during warmups? I'm specifically referring to the situation where one of the teams run laps around the entire court while the other team is warming up. Our association has told us to restrict them to their half of the court.

I believe that was a POE in Illinois last year. I still haven't seen anyone enforce it though.