Never had this happen?

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

The thing I would do under this situation, as far as the coach saying they wanted to quit, is to emphasize for as long as he or she will remain and listen to me is that you do NOT want to do this. It is setting a VERY bad example for the players and will only get you in a LOT of trouble depending upon the league authority. If that doesn't work, have the coach of the other team go and give it a whirl.

If this is an inseason game in Texas, I will tell the coach point blank: "coach, if you leave the floor with your team, it is very likely you will be suspended for the year and there is a very good chance you are putting your job in jeapordy. You and your team need to stay on the floor." After that, you don't have control of what happens.

I disagree completely with your philosophy.

It ain't our job to tell a coach what to do ever. It ain't our job to argue with 'em, convince 'em of anything, or try to talk 'em into anything. It also ain't our job to ever threaten a coach with a suspension or a possible job loss; saying something like that could come back and bite you in the butt later on big time. You've already got one extremely pissed-off coach. If you now try to threaten or lecture him, you're only gonna make her madder and possibly escalate a bad situation into a worse one.

Just react to what's going on and say as little as possible. Tell the coach that he's got one minute to put her team on the floor and get the timer to start the clock. If the minute runs down and she's not ready to go, forfeit the game. Then you just write it up as completely as possible and hand it into their league administration or whover handles these cases. It's their job to decide what happens next, not our's.

Jmo.

[26 Year Gap]

And how would we react if a coach told us OUR job was in jeopardy? Don't go there.

[Texas Aggie]

It's not a threat or a lecture; its reality. I don't have any ability to fire someone, so how could it be a threat? I guess I can see how someone would see it as a lecture, but even if it is, they certainly deserve it. If they take it as a threat or lecture and stay on the court, everybody wins.

If they truly are stupid enough to try and come back at me for suggesting I've done something wrong after they've walked off the court -- something at least in Texas that will get them in serious trouble -- I say bring it on. My point in suggesting this to a coach is to try and make one last attempt to their logical side (which you may think is a waste of time, and a point with which I may agree), and I have had very good success in various events in my life in making profound, emphatic statements that "encouraged" people to act appropriately (statements that I may not have fully been able to back up) -- or to not act inappropriately. If their better judgment actually does come into play and they stay on the court, we play on and forget the whole thing. If they do leave, I have done what I can and could never imagine getting into trouble for saying something like what I've quoted. I will simply explain that I was illustrating that their behavior would have very serious negative consequences and to get them to behave appropriately is always justified. I wasn't doing or saying anything wrong or illegal. A football coach/AD told me several years ago that any coach of his that left the court or field with their team would be fired. They would have breached their contract.

If you want to handle it differently, fine. I don't disagree with what you said about it not being our job to do this. But I feel that in certain cases (I probably wouldn't do it in a HS varsity game and would never do it in a college game) it would be worthwhile.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

I disagree completely with your philosophy.

It ain't our job to tell a coach what to do ever. It ain't our job to argue with 'em, convince 'em of anything, or try to talk 'em into anything. It also ain't our job to ever threaten a coach with a suspension or a possible job loss; saying something like that could come back and bite you in the butt later on big time. You've already got one extremely pissed-off coach. If you now try to threaten or lecture him, you're only gonna make her madder and possibly escalate a bad situation into a worse one.

Just react to what's going on and say as little as possible. Tell the coach that he's got one minute to put her team on the floor and get the timer to start the clock. If the minute runs down and she's not ready to go, forfeit the game. Then you just write it up as completely as possible and hand it into their league administration or whover handles these cases. It's their job to decide what happens next, not our's.

Jmo.

I with you on this one JR.

[tonyp]

I had a similar situation in a 6th grade game. First quarter, visiting coach screaming. I go over to find out what's wrong. He demands a new clock operator. I ask again what's wrong. Coach scream unitelligably about the clock operator. At this point the other coach jumps up and demands that he show respect. The gym direcotr comes over so I leave it to him. Turns out the team gets up and leaves.

Unfortuantely I had another game to do so I had to hang out.

[jeffpea]

tonyp - yours is a good example of an official who tries to find out what the problem is and attempt to fix/address it, if possible. We can't be "all things to all people" and resolve every conflict, but we certainly have to find out what is going on. Clearly the coach didn't like the alternatives and he made the decision to walk out with his team. Not much you can do about that except be confident in the fact that you tried to resonably resolve the issue.....much better than using some smart-aleck answer to his initial complaint.......well done!

[tonyp]

Thanks. I will admit that I'm not immune from the smart alack response at times. From talking to people after he left, he was complaining that the clock wasn't stopping on whistles. Of course, at that age level in that league it's running clock. How he got 8 games into the season without knowing that I'll never know. He was also losing 13-0 so maybe that was a factor. I just hate to see the kids not get to play their game because of an adult.