Coach Follies

[Scrapper1]

Great double-header yesterday. Pre-season boys tournament. First game, at the end of the first half, the Blue coach says to me, "Let me know about 30 seconds before the half starts, so I get a chance to talk to my guys?" No sweat. It's very informal, so I'm just sitting at the table. After about 5 minutes, I blow the horn. The teams both go to their benches. My partner and the scorer are still out in the hall getting a drink or whatever. So a minute or so, maybe two minutes go by and my partner comes back in. I get the ball and go to midcourt. White comes out, it's their ball. I blow the whistle to get Blue out of their huddle. Nobody comes out. Horn blows again. Nothing. I blow the whistle. "Let's go, Blue!" Nothing. Partner also yells to the bench with no result. I whistle again and say, "Ball's coming in, Blue!" Still nothing. Finally, they break the huddle. When all 5 players get on the court, I blow the whistle and give White the ball; they get an easy basket. Coach then yells, "What was that for?" and says to my parter, "I asked him to give me 30 seconds! What was that for?"

Second game, I'm lead. During rebounding action, one player uses his right arm to push his opponent almost out of bounds and catches the rebound with his left hand. Really obvious foul. I call a pushing foul. As I'm going to report, the coach says, "That was a good box out. That's how we teach a box out!" I tried to say that he pushed, but the coach keeps saying that it was a good box out, over and over. Finally, I just said, "Ok Coach, it was a good box out." What else can you say?