Since we're sharing AAU War Stories. . .

[drothamel]

This is one that I never got around to posting. . .

I worked an AAU 14U boys tournament two weekends ago. I only did 4 games. The first game was flawless, so I should have known something was amiss. In the 3rd quarter of game 2, a A1 commits a foul on B1 in the act of shooting. The coach for B1 did not like the amount of contact, but there was nothing intentional or flagrant about it, and neither player reacted poorly to it. Well, while B1 is on the line, coach for B is saying some stuff. A1 thinks that coach B is talking either to or about him, or both- so he says something to coach B. Well, now A1's father gets involved. He comes down out of the stands and proceeds to walk along the sideline, passed the table, and is pointing his finger at coach B telling him to stop talking to his kid, etc. So my partner and I have to try and keep these two separated, get everyone calmed down, and try to get in touch with tournament personnel. It ended up that everyone went back to their repsective corners and calmed down for the rest of the game, which team A ended up winning in overtime.

In game 3, some guy approaches me and my partner on the floor in between the 1st and 2nd quarters and starts telling us about 3 seconds (of course, what else would fans talk about). So I tell him, "You need to go back into the stands, NOW." He seemed kinda surprised, but he apologized and went back into the stands. At halftime, he comes up to us again and apologizes and says that he didn't realize he couldn't do that, and he is really a nice guy. "That may be true," I say, "but we don't know that when you come out of the stands. And if this had been a HS game with police present, I would have had you taken out immediately." The guy was really apologetic. A bit stupid, albeit, but suffuciently sorry.

Never a dull moment at the AAU games!

[ChrisSportsFan]

Well, did you learn what 3 seconds is?
Maybe he was a Monk.

We had a situation this past weekend where the guy who runs one of the AAU Club Teams (he is not a coach of this particular team) was watching the game and kept making references across the gym to his coach that "you know when you play those guys you'll never get any calls". My response was a steady diet of silence. After the game, he went to the bench and kept his team there for the whole 10 minutes of warm-up time for the next game. I told my partner to leave them be, he's just trying to bait us over to have to ask them to give up the bench. When it was time to get the next game rolling, the incoming coach asked if I could help move them on so I had to go over and yes, you guessed it, Mr. AAU wanted to talk about foul calls. I politely asked him to move along.

Here's my question; how would you have dealt with this, other than getting the tourney director?

[Edited by ChrisSportsFan on Apr 25th, 2005 at 02:14 PM]

[drothamel]

To answer your first question... he wasn't a monk. A troll, maybe, but not a monk.

As far as your sitch goes. . .that is one of those things you only see in rec league/AAU. I hate that junk. I guess all you can do is ask them to move along, and politely ignore any of his prodding about foul calls. IMHO, once the game is over, it is over. At that point, the time for talking has long sice passed. Of course, I wasn't there, and I don't know what the guy is like, so it is tough to say. Like you mentioned, the safe bet is always to have tournament officials do that kind of stuff. As we all know, however, we usually have to do some of the dirty work ourselves. It sounds like he didn't give you too much trouble, so what did you actually end up doing?

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by ChrisSportsFan


Here's my question; how would you have dealt with this, other than getting the tourney director?

I wouldn't have dealt with this any different than you, except maybe I woulda told the tournament director to move him along without ever talking to the guy. You were completely right to ignore him. Good job. No good at all can ever come out of talking to these clowns--they never listen to what you're saying anyway. They just wanna bit*h at ya, is all.

[ChrisSportsFan]

Well, I'm 6'6" 240 and this guy was BIG. He oversees a BB Club that a bunch of the inner city police officers run. For the most part, they're pretty good teams. His coaches had no issues and even thanked and congratulated us for a job well done. I'm sure he's also a police officer and he had a perpetual scowel on his face. I simple said; "hey guys, they need the bench, please hustle up". He started in and then he stopped when he realized he was talking to my back, then he went away.

[drothamel]

Whoa. . . at 6'6" 240lbs. I'm gonna go wherever you tell me to. I'm only 6'2" 175. Not nearly as imposing, so I try to rely on my superior intellect and wit (LOL).

[cmathews]

We don't have AAU ball around here, and it sounds like a blessing...we do have youth league stuff which I am guessing is real similar...This spring after a game, where the foul count was somewhat unbalanced, 9-1 I think, the losing coach, waits until he can walk past us as we are leaving the court...He looks at me then the clock and says, so are you saying that they only fouled us 1 time this half...I looked from him to the clock and back, composed myself, and said "evidently yes" and walked on...it did shut him up...so it did feel pretty good LOL

[drothamel]

"Coach, I don't commit 'em, I only call 'em."

[26 Year Gap]

Guess you didn't want to use the @ss in plastic line, huh?

[dblref]

Originally posted by drothamel
Whoa. . . at 6'6" 240lbs. I'm gonna go wherever you tell me to. I'm only 6'2" 175. Not nearly as imposing, so I try to rely on my superior intellect and wit (LOL).

ChrisSportsFan has me by 1" and 10 lbs. It often helps being big.