AAU Coach Out of Control

JAdams · #1 (**permalink**) Tue Jun 12, 2001, 07:34am

Hey, fellow officials, I need your help.

I worked a series of AAU games this past weekend. The setting is a "back" gym with only one entrance/exit, and the tournament director is spending most of his time in the "front" gym. One game involved 12-year-olds and it was close all the way. The home coach was a demonstrative guy... up a lot during the game, yelling enough to warrant a stop sign from us officials. The team coached by the demonstrative coach ends up losing by two points. Immediately after the game (lots of loud celebrating by the winning team) the losing coach chases each of us officials down and screams at us with lots of words beginning with the letter "F". This tirade goes on for a good 2-3 minutes. We, of course, cost his team the game.

My partner and I got together and decided that we should ban him from any more tournament coaching. We sought out the tournament director, who informed us that this coach's team had just been eliminated with their second loss of the weekend. We let it go at that.

Here's the question: do we have any more recourse against this coach? Is there a regional/national sanctioning agency for AAU ball which has jurisdiction on stuff like this? His tirade was such that, if he were a HS coach, he would be DQ'd for at least the next two games.

Comments/suggestions welcomed.

Tim Roden · #2 (**permalink**) Tue Jun 12, 2001, 08:58am

As an official the only thing you can do is eject him from your game. In many places that would require him to sit out the next game. If it happens enough then the coach would be replaced.

JRutledge · #3 (**permalink**) Tue Jun 12, 2001, 02:53pm

I think this depends on the league, tournament or area. I have had similar problems with AAU coaches, and what I have found is that many times it is the support of the tournament directors and people that are in charge and set the rules. Do what you feel is right and let the chips fall where they may.

If he has got to go, he has got to go.

Peace

Hawks Coach · #4 (**permalink**) Tue Jun 12, 2001, 03:29pm

A lot of what are called "AAU" tournaments are rather loosely run by AAU clubs. In official girls AAU events (qualifying tournaments, Nationals, and National Invitation Championships), an ejection is a one-game suspension. However, these rules do not apply to club-sponsored tournaments. Frequently, no rule on ejections/suspensions is specified for these tournaments. Then it is up to the tournament director to make the call. And I am not convinced that clubs exercise enough oversight over their coaches (or that they have sufficient numbers of coaches) that a club will can a coach when he/she gets ejected a few (or more) times.

Mark T. DeNucci, Sr. · #5 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 18, 2001, 09:55pm

It is a shame that you had to be exposed to this kind of behavior but Hawks Coach is correct if this was a club sponsored tournament. But I have been officiating in AAU National Championship and National Invitational Championship tournaments for both boys and girls since 1993, I can assure you from personal experience that if that had happened in a AAU Girls NC or NIC, the officials would have been blamed for the coach's behavior and would not have been protected by the AAU Girls' National Director of Basketball Officials. In 1995 at the 14U/15U NC, my partner were cornered our dressing roome by three coaches and three parents of the losing team of the game we had just officiated. To this day we do not know how the people got into our dressing room. We could not get out of the room to get the site manager and it got pretty ugly because when we tried to get past them we were threatened with physical violence and they would have us arrested for attacking them. I still officiate AAU nationals but AAU wants to protect its image instead of doing the correct thing. The Director of Officials and I do not speak to each other to this very day, because he knows that I will rip him a new anus over the 1995 situation.

You just have to pick your battles and lets face it, until there is a fundamental change in attitude by players, parents, coaches, and tournament administrators, these situations will continue to happen. Especially tournament administrators, they do not want the public to know that they allow that kind of unacceptable social behavior at their sporting events. And the reason why is BIG MONEY. Tournament administrators LOVE money more than they have the intestatinal fortitude to do the correct thing.

Dan_ref · #6 (**permalink**) Mon Jun 18, 2001, 11:02pm

Quote:

Originally posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

...
In 1995 at the 14U/15U NC, my partner were cornered our dressing roome by three coaches and three parents of the losing team of the game we had just officiated. To this day we do not know how the people got into our dressing room. We could not get out of the room to get the site manager and it got pretty ugly because when we tried to get past them we were threatened with physical violence and they would have us arrested for attacking them. ...

Mark, thanks for this because it shows that this type of
thing can happen to anyone without warning. I hope by now
we are *ALL* carrying a cell phone in our game bag.
And knowing how to defend yourself is a good idea as well.