I was stretching near the home team locker room tonight before a girls varsity game (the ref room is co-located with the home locker room). Anyway, home coach comes to me and says to watch #44 because she always shoves and pushes. I ask him, "#44 on your team coach?" He says "NO, on their team." I said "Okay, coach, and if you will excuse me I'm going to head down and ask the visiting coach if there's anyone on your team he wants me to keep an eye on." I think he got the message because we heard nothing from him all night long. His team played well but lost by 3 to a much higher ranked team. By the way, #44 only had 1 foul and did not push and shove.

I had a similar scenario before a BV game. Visiting coach starts complaining about how the last time they played each other, they were "getting hammered at the posts." I told him I'd be happy to hear him in the presence of the other coach thinking he'd give up. Lo and behold he says, "sure" and marches right over to the home coach and talks about how his players got hammered, etc. Home coach has a bewildered look on his face, unsure how to react, and when I ask him if he has anything for us he goes, "Yeah I want you guys to make sure that when we have the ball, we try to score," in a joking way, then the coaches leave, my partner and I have a laugh and the home coach comments to his assistant, "What the hell is that guy talking about? I think he lost it." Of course the message we sent worked, we wouldn't be subject to gamesmanship and the game went smoothly.