How not to enforce Bench Decorum
 

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.

At least you recognized your own mistakes. I'm sure these things won't happen again in any of your games.

Geez Adam! Do you need me to fly out there and take care of your coaches for you? :D Sounds like way too many problems for an 8th grade AAU game. As always, nip it in the bud.

Head Coach and Asst. Coach are both standing.
Me: "Coach, I can only have the Head Coach standing, your Asst. needs to sit down. Thanks for your help."
Coach (to Asst.): "Sit down."

End of discussion.

If they don't want to follow the rules set forth . . .

Coach's Asst. gets up again.
Me: "Coach, your Asst. needs to sit down. This is your warning." I then inform my partners of the warning.
Coach (to Asst.): "SIT DOWN, and don't get up again."

End of discussion.

Coach's Asst. gets up again.
Me: TWEET! "Technical Foul on Team A. Coach, you and your asst. will need to remain seated for the remainder of the game. Thank you."

Shoot two, inbound the ball. End of discussion.

IMO, you let it go too far. I am sure you were just trying to be accomodating, but that is why you only have ONE Head Coach. In fact, I don't talk with assistant coaches. They are there to coach their kids. (however, if they (asst.) ask a question during a time-out or during intermissions, and they are courteous and professional, I will answer the question. There is no reason to be rude.)

Yup. Should have taken the bullet out of my pocket sooner, right Deputy Fife?
Actually, overall, the game didn't go too badly. Other than a preponderance of travels and having 4 girls foul out.... 7 minute quarters took about 1:45 to complete. Bottom line, I'll take this as an experiment in bench decorum.

I feel your pain......

This kind of thing tends to be more of a problem at the MS/JH level and you have to stop it early.

I try to be proactive - if before the game I see more than one coach, I ask explicitly who is the head coach, then tell them right then that they are the only one allowed to stand to coach. The first time an assistant stands when they shouldn't or starts to get mouthy, I tell the previously identified head coach "Get your bench under control". Next time it happens, immediate T and now no one from that team gets to stand.

I work with some lower level officials that don't do pregame meetings. I always do a short one mainly for the coaches just to let them know that they don't get to act like the guys they see on TV. It seems to help.

We do what Tim suggests also. We tell our officials to address this before the game starts. When they introduce themselves to the coaches pre-game, they find out fer sure who the head coach is, and inform him/her at that time that he/she will be the only coach allowed to stand/talk. If they then wanna try something different later during the game, hey, they've been warned.

Works for us(if the guys do what they're told to do).

Can't find it.....
 

I am trying to find stuff on the pre-game conference in the rules or casebooks. But alas it is not there. i know in volleyball it is mandatory for the head coach to attend. Anything similar in basketball ?

Could the first T have been avoided?
 

Since my personal POE this year is dealing with coaches, I'm going to ask a rather pedantic question. What about this statement earned the coach the T? Was it his attitude? On it's face, the statement merely expresses the coach's unhappiness with the rule. Could your partner have gotten out of this by saying something like: "I don't make the rules, coach, but I do have to enforce them."?

It's on p.91 of the <b>OFFICIALS MANUAL</b>.

Excerpt:
- <i>"Greet head coaches, address sporting behavior expectations, and check on legality of player
equipment".</i>

I believe it's in the official's manual, though I don't recall if it says the head coaches must attend. Here in Utah, however, our state office has mandated that the head coach must attend.

Dang you're fast, JR :D

Well....maybe the fact that he just said <b>"That's just stupid"</b>?:rolleyes:

That rule been in for a million years. Every coach in the world knows it that the assistant coaches can't stand. There's no way that any coach waited until this particular time in this particular game to say "Gee, I really don't like this rule".

Why try to "get out" of calling any very well deserved technical foul? Dealing with coaches sureasheck doesn't mean that you're gonna let them crap all over you imo. Nip it! Nip it in the bud!

Quite a few states have made the pre-game coach/official conference mandatory, along with mandatory topics like sportsmanship. Or sportswomanship(added so that I don't piss Juulie off- again).:D

A brief pregame meeting with the coaches is essential IMHO - that's the best place to address this kind of stuff. It's mandatory here as well.

Here we use a 15-11-8-3 protocol for HS games:
On the floor no later than 15 minutes pregame
R checks books at 11 minutes (gives them time to make corrections if needed)
Captains at 8 minutes
Coaches at 3 minutes

It works well for MS/JH games as well, but sometimes we have to squeeze it together a little to fit in the time they allot between games.

I'd warned the HC several minutes before this, and he looked at me like I'd told him France was responsible for winning WWII. This was the assistant coach who told my partner it was stupid, and there was a bit of attitude involved as well. Also, she didn't so much as make a move to take her seat when she said it. All of that said, we should have addressed it at the first dead ball of the game. Better yet, it should have been touched on prior to the game. The sad part is, we'd just discussed this very thing at the association meeting the night before.

I just flat out didn't do what I knew I should do.

Sheez, Adam, don't go all mature on us, taking responsibility for your own actions. Pretty soon, everyone else will have to start doing that too!

I agree JR. I think part of the problem is that these lower level games are often officiated by newer, less experienced officials that not only haven't yet developed their game management skills, but on top of that are real hesitant to call the dreaded "technical foul". Couple that with coaches that are in many cases parent volunteers that often have little or no real rules knowledge or formal training, so they emulate what they think coaching is...often what they've seen on TV. They get away with something once & figure it's OK.

A technical foul isn't anything special, it's just another kind of foul....and we need to calmly and dispassionately call them when they are deserved.

Amen!<i></i>

Part of the problem here is that we're at the end of the AAU season, and the coach looked at me like I was an idiot when I informed him of the rule. Apparently, it hadn't been enforced correctly all season.

BTW, we did hit them with the Ts (three of them). I think, however, that if we had dealt with it a little more quickly and decisively, we probably could have got by with just one. I'll never know for sure, though.

Sorry, I misspoke. What I meant to say was, "It wasn't my fault. I blame the parent-volunteer keeping the book."

Or should I blame Karl Rove?

You can blame either 90% of the time.

Gotta nip that in the bud! :D

Having read Adam's responses, and knowing now that it was near the end of the season, that he'd previously warned the head coach, and that the assistant said it with some attitude and clearly showed no signs of complying, yeah it was a righteous T.

But just for uttering the phrase "That's just stupid" without the rest of the context, well that would be a lot less clear. As always, HTBT