How not to enforce Bench Decorum

[Adam]

MS girls AAU. We did not address it quickly and decisively enough, and ended up slacking on the rule a bit; and I’m not happy with how it turned out.
Visiting coaches (three coaches, no clear HC) all think they can be standing at any given time. We informed them that only one can be off the bench (here was the first mistake), and he looks at me like I just told him the earth is flat.

At this point (the ball was dead), I should have called a quick conference at the table and informed both coaches that only the head coach could stand (one team may have had to make a decision). Instead, we allowed them to have one coach up at a time (yep, this was the 2nd mistake). We figured it was some sort of compromise that might work (not really).

Fast forward (still first quarter); partner is reporting a foul, and visiting coaches are all up again. Partner tells them they need to be seated, and one coach mouths off with, “that’s just stupid.” Whack. Rather than seat belt the coaches, partner considers it a bench T with no indirect on the coach (third mistake). Now, home team is often having their asst coach up, and we end up addressing that with a T in the 2nd quarter. For consistency’s sake, we give them the same courtesy, and no one is seatbelted.

Fourth quarter, home asst. coach is whining about what he considers a missed travel call. I’m ignoring it until my partner calls a travel on the home team on the other end of the court. Asst. pulls out the sarcasm, loudly, giving me no choice. Now, we seatbelt the home team. There were no further incidents.

It just would have been a lot cleaner if we'd addressed it with both coaches as soon as I saw there was going to be a problem. More importantly, sticking with the rule as it's written would have been even more effective.