AAU coaches
 

Earlier this month I spent back-to-back weekends officiating the Boo Williams Invitational National girls & boys tournaments. Thirteen games in all, 6 boys games the first weekend and 7 girls games the next weekend. It was without a doubt the most pleasant experience I've had collectively dealing with coaches. In those 13 contests my crews only T'd up one (1) coach and one (1) player plus remind 2 assistants about their limited privileges. That's it, no long debates, no jumping up and down on the sideline, no yelling for fouls, travels, and 3-second's. Only had one coach directly question me on a call and I told him my partner had the best look on the court and he was happy with that answer. Had 2 kids question me on fouls I called and after I explained they both told me "good call". Had several losing coaches seek out my crews after games to shake our hands. Even had losing fans tell us "good game". Even had one losing coach come up to the crew and tell us that if his girls had worked as hard as we did that they would have won.

We had numerous coaches who jumped on their players for bailing out opponents with silly fouls in trapping situations, or for not moving their feet on defense, etc, etc.

Funniest moment was the very last game I officiated. My partner in the Slot made a very, very questionable block call on a fast break. I was the Lead and saw the whole play (it definitely was not a block). The Trail, who is best friends with the Slot, look at me and rolled his eyes. A teammate came and helped up the girl who was called for the block then looked at me and said "Sir, for future reference, what do we need to do to draw a charge in that situation?" All I could do was smile to myself and tell her she needed to ask my partner about the call.

It really was a joy interacting with the players, coaches, and fans those 2 weekends.

When I grow up, I want to be just like you!

Rob,

the one play the coach questioned me on was one of your calls. Don't worry, I didn't sell you out :p

Jmo, but I think that your trail needs a lesson in professionalism. That's an absolute no-no out on the court. Best friends or not, if someone on the bench or in the stands picked that :rolleyes: gesture up, you've just hung the calling official out to dry.

These 2 guys are nuts. It's was going back and forth between those 2 both games we did together.

Just a reminder that AAU plays with college rules (at least in my area) and that sitting the coach after a technical is a high school rule. This is an FYI so that you don't misapply this rule with a coach that knows the rule (for those 1% that know the rules :D)

That's a regional thing. We use FED rules here for AAU.

Not here. Any AAU tourney we have are NFHS rules. If the coach wants to argue it, I can easily issue a second T and then the issue is moot. Plus I have only heard that the girls games use the NCAA rules at the regional events and up. Do the boys do this too?

The girls use NCCA Womens Mechanics in the regionals and may or may not have a shot clock. We had a shot clock this weekend.