Where's your sign?

[Hawks Coach]

What I always wonder when I see this kind of stuff happen is whether your fellow refs are handing out the T's that they should. You did what you needed to under the circumstances, but did some of your colleagues set you up for this by not punishing this behavior earlier in these players' careers?

I know that players can get emotional at times, but these are high school girls, probably veteran AAUers with 100s of high level games under their belt by this age. We have JV and varsity refs beginning in MS AAU tournaments. I would think that this type of incident would already have happened and they already would have learned their lesson - and there really aren't that many Rasheeds out there. Most players figure it out and don't set themselves up for the automatics, as long as the refs have taught them what an automatic is by handing out the T.

But perhaps this is their first time (they are at the right age) of getting this mouthy, so it's a good thing that you didn't hesitate on the T's. Another possibility is that the coach has set an environment that leads to players having these discipline problems.

Good job in letting them know the boundaries - you may have saved someone else the conflict.