You guys will never believe this. A high school coach asked me this question. He comes up to me and said “can I ask you a question”? I say “Yes”. He asks “since when can a player driving to the basket, jump and stop on both feet and then make a lay-up” I paused (shocked by the question) and answered at least the past twenty years. The technical term is Jump-Stop”. He stared at me in disbelief and said “ what do you think this is the NBA”. I just shook me head and walked away. WOW!

Of course I am not surprised. That is what coaches do. They do not know the rules and they ask questions that reflect that. I am not surprised at all. It is common place to get those kinds of questions from coaches.

Peace

You should have responded "You mean besides the one you just asked me?" :D

On second thought...you didn't know what was coming and that probably would have set a bad tone.

At least he was brave enough to risk the embarresment of asking.

You know Rut. I expect this kind of questions from a Rec league coach, not a high school coach. I think one of his players had to explain it to him.

I'd believe it. Last week, on Monday I had a terrible JV team. At one point I call a pushing foul on them because after an offensive player took a 3, the defensive player (from the terrible team) pushed him about 4 steps oob. Coach asks what happened and I explain that the player had great position, but instead of holding that nice box out, the defensive player pushed the offensive player back, which is a foul. The coach says, "That makes sense, we've had that called about 4 times and I didn't understand the call." I get the same team at home AFTER the varsity game (weirdest double header I've ever worked). One of my parners calls one of the home players for a push when the kid backs the offensive player pretty much out into the hall. Coach throws up his hands and yells, "That looks like a good box out to me." No wonder his team struggled. One of his players fouled out of the varsity game in the late 3rd or early 4th quarter. He also fouled out of the JV game in the first half, playing 6 minute quarters. So on the night, the kid committed 10 fouls in right around 4 quarters of play. Luckily I have one more JV/V double header left with 2 very good teams. I'd hate to end the season on the mess we had Friday night.

I would expect that from a HS coach. Not all HS coaches are competent or "qualified" to coach that level. A lot of HS coaches are thrown into those positions and did not have to beat out a lot of people to coach those teams. I have even heard crazy things from college coaches. I would not be surprised one bit that any coach would say something like this when most coaches do not look at the rules or go through the same process to understand the game from our perspective that we take.

Peace

Yes, I can believe this. I had a D1 women's college coach, year's ago, ask me to go over the travel rule with her after her team had finished practice. I used the rule book and casebook and we went through the rules literally step-by-step. When we were done, she told me that the rules were wrong. Go figure.

Also, I wish I had a dollar for every time a coach has requested a timeout while his team has control of the ball in front of their bench, and then after the timeout the coach asks me who gets the ball and where?

MTD, Sr.

Coach seems frustrated and your response certainly didn't help. Why not ask the coach to explain his frustration a bit better and see if you can truly help? The jump stop is a point for discussion and some questioning even among the most learned officials, so why the surprise when a coach has a question?

No one deliberately asks a stupid question - maybe it sounds that way to us, but try a bit of patience and being helpful may help break down some of the barriers....just a thought.

ditttoo, great point....let me know how that works for YOU.
Every now and then, a coach is sincere in their question but I oftentimes find this as an opportunity for them to disguise a complaint about another official or a complaint about me.

My response to his question was appropriate to the manner in which he asked
You are correct the coach may have been a little frustrated; his team was losing by a large margin. But he was asking me about a very common play in basketball, one that I seen 7th & 8th graders execute to perfection, like he had never seen it before until that game. When a player on your bench has to explain this to you maybe you should try a little harder to learn about the sport you are coaching.

This or the players wandering out after a TO or an intermission wanting to know who gets the ball where. Or after holding up 2 fingers & yelling "2 SHOTS!" one of the players looks at you in near panic, asking how many shots.

Unbelievable.

I have to disagree with you. I like the way Rex-X handled it. You walk away when the coach is clearly trying to get argumentative with you after you gave him/her an answer. You are not obligated to answer any question or to go through a long conversation so the coach can agree with what you say. Also, how long do you expect anyone to talk through a situation with the coach? I am lucky if I can say more than one sentence to a coach during live ball play. I am not going to have an elongated conversation with a coach when that coach clearly is ignorant and wants to tell you the official what the rules are. It is most of the time best to walk away.

Peace

I disagree, asking stupid questions is a tactic coaches use to "work" officials, or to test officials. Last Friday in a GV game, a very experienced and knowledgeble coach asked my partner (who he'd never seen before), "Shouldn't that shot be a 2 because she landed inside the 3 point line?" When my partner, a very solid basketball official and college baseball umpire, came to me during a timeout with a befuddled look on his face and told me what happened, I laughed and told him that this coach is just testing you. This is a tactic that might work in exposing newer, less confident officials who don't necessarily know the rules too well through intimidation. Personally I think this tactic is very bush league, but all coaches are not benevolent and they will deliberately ask stupid questions if doing so could give them or their team an edge.

Mind you, there's only 2 weeks left in the regular season around here. Friday night I reminded a coach about her coaching box and she said; "where's my box, is it marked?" We were at her gym. In case anyone was wondering; no, I did not answer her question.

I was the linesman in a JV football game a few years ago. The R threw a flag on a relatively routine penalty (I don't recall the penalty--its immaterial). The JV head coach (at a good football school no less) stormed at me asking how could the referee make that call. I responded it was a good call, right in line with the rules. He asked how did the referee and I know that the play was illegal. I stood there for a few seconds thinking it must have been a trick question. Finally I said its our job to know the rules. It was a like a lightbulb went on in his head, and he didn't bother me again the rest of the game. An almost surreal experience.

Coaches don't ask questions to learn the game. If they did, they would actually have a clue about the rules. They ask questions for one reason--to try to gain some type of advantage and (to their way of thinking) work the officials. I WISH coaches were interested in becoming more knowledgeable about the rules! Of course, you have the occasional coach who does know a little about basketball and works his players instead of the refs. Usually they are on the winning bench.

Rec. League
 

I am a commish of a large rec. league.

I have some so-so coaches...

I had a coach ask me why the other players are not called for 3 seconds. I said HUH? He said well 3 seconds resets when a player shoots the ball, but the other players on his team didn't shoot the ball.

Re: Rec. League
 

Any COACH that asked this question should be stripped of that title.

I was working a girls CYO game and called a 5 second closely guarded violation. The coach, not at all happy, asked me how long the rule has been in effect. I told her I wasn't sure how long but it was in effect now. At halftime I pulled out my rule book and showed her the rule. She said it was ridiculous and that six feet is too much space. I finally told her we were playing by the official rules and not her rules. She shut up.

Immaterial? Are you a CPA or something?

This is the biggest issue I have with Rec. league and CYO coaches. They are supposed to be teaching kid the game of basketball, but someone needs to teach them. They sit there and complain and question calls without a clue about the rules or how they are applied. When it is so easy to pick up a book or go on the internet and learn the rules of the game they are teaching.

Ignorance hurts....
 

High school regional champs.Last 7 seconds of the game. Red team is one point down, starting from the sideline in the backcourt. Blue team plays press, with three blue players in the red teams backcourt. Very intense situation. Red player passes the ball in to his team mate, who starts driving the ball up the court, then passes the ball across the half way line straight to a blue player, who intercepted the ball about four steps away from the halfway line, and starts running across the court.
Coach of the red team jumps up and starts SCREAMING for a violation, ball returned to backcourt.Even his players give him a wierd look. As he keeps screaming, he gets the big T. Red team lost by 3 points. But wait, there's more:after the game, he lodges an official complaint!
Did not see him coach any HS teams in the region next year.
The morale of the story:ignorance hurts! Good intentions are not enough to be a coach.

OK, I don't want to disturb your generalizations too much but I am a coach who actually asks questions for at least three reasons.

1) Ask for more info about what happened. Especially in regard to fouls, I often want to know what an official saw and called early in a game so I can help my players adjust. Body contact, hit shooter's elbow, hacked dribbler's arm? Quick clarification so I can talk with my team at the break to add a focus that will help us clean it up if needed.

2) Rules clarification. I do read the rule book and I actually hang out on an officials forum to learn more about the rules, so, yes, I want to understand the rules. If I can get a quick clarification during the action I will ask for it. Sometimes I ask before or after a game if I'm curious and I remember to ask.

3) Working a situation - yes I do this sometimes. I have never asked a disingenuous question like, "he shot from 3 but landed in 2 so shouldn't that be a 2?" I agree with SMEngmann that this is bush. If I sincerely have a question, I ask it. On a very rare occasion, I'm convinced I know the rule better than the official (not so much in high school, but sometimes when I coached a 7th/8th-grade team for 2 seasons) but I would never say this directly to them out loud unless I completely lost my mind.

If the rules were simple enough to just absorb by reading the book, this forum wouldn't exist, right? If a coach is asking an ignorant question loudly he/she is showing demonstrating ignorance in front of players and fans/parents so the choices seem pretty straight-forward:

a) allow to continue to so he/she makes an idiot of him/herself and just ignore the question.

b) take pity and teach so he/she can choose between looking like an idiot and shutting up.

c) if you think the question is disingenuous warn or whack.

I know that fans and players and crappy coaches heap all sorts of unwarranted abuse on officials but the coaches I work with generally respect officials (even if they don't communicate it in the heat of battle) and are pretty discriminating between the good ones and the few they don't think are good. They also understand the difference between the call that drove them nuts and the overall professionalism of the official who made it. These are the coaches who I want to be the general examples who represent me. ;)

[Edited by bebanovich on Feb 23rd, 2006 at 05:43 PM]

Sigh . . . this is a good point too. Can we start a fund to buy extra books to hand out to obnoxious youth coaches when they act like this?

If they don't respect the game enough to shell out a few bucks to purchase the book, what makes you think they will read it if you hand it to them on a platter?

I was thinking of this more as a shutter-upper than a library-builder. Maybe we could have them printed the size of those giant PR novelty checks.