Direct 'T' on a coach

[Joe Bob]

Recently in a boys varsity ball game, one of the coaches called a time out to obviously protest a percieved bad call. I saw it coming and tried to head it off at the pass by saying to him "Don't come out here, I'll come talk to you after I report the time out." His response to me was "I'll come out here anytime I want.." and boy howdy did he. I had no recourse but to deliver the 'T'.. (During pre-game with my partner, we agreed to defuse this type of situation by letting the other official explain the loss of coaching box priveledge to the offending coach.) My partner had settled down (or so I thought) the coach and as we were getting ready for a throw in several teen seconds after this indident, I remembered a suggestion made to me many years ago by a mentor of mine. I happened to administering the throw in directly in front of the coach I had 'Teed" a few minutes ago, when I heard an obvious diparaging remark from him. Wanting to keep him in a close, conference game, I turned and called a bench technical foul, which is an indirect on him. He got the point.. I explained this time to him that 1 more, direct or in-direct, would leave us no other choice but to remove him from the game. My mentor told me long ago that our job as officials is not to run coaches & rats (thats star spelled backward)but to do our best to keep them on the court. I had a good talk with him after the game and he was surprised that I obviously circumvented the rules to allow him to participate. He still disagreed with the initial call, but felt better after I had expalined things from my point of view..