I guess I don't understand setting a goal like that. If they're there, call em. If they're not, don"t. What if you've already given out 3 and a coach throws a towel on the floor, will you give him extra rope so you don't go over your goal? What if in your last game of this season, you've only given out 1 all year? Do you still try to meet your goal? You can work on you communication and still rack up a number of T's.

My experience is that some officials are eager to T coaches (or toss 'em in baseball), and they think that their manhood is at stake if they don't get the coach at the earliest opportunity (and I've never met a female official who's aggressive in this way).

Other officials seem to think that penalizing coaches is intrinsically bad, or at best a necessary evil. This attitude leads them to aim to minimize their T's, as if that were a good goal.

I guess I understand the idea of using "benchmarks" to measure progress in one area or another - so, for instance, thinking that 3 T's on coaches in a season marked good game management. But I think that erroneously assumes that all coaches are approximately the same.

Some coaches are good and some are bad. I agree with the attitude of going to a game site to do my job. If a coach is going to interfere with my capacity to do my job, then I will apply the appropriate penalty. I want neither to look for nor to avoid the opportunity to penalize a coach.

I have always felt that if a situation can be avoided with proper game management prior to it deteriorating, then that is a good thing. Hence, while I am not shy about whacking whomever needs it, I will try to have a civil conversation and use the stop sign prior to pulling the trigger.

A mentor of mine in my first year always said to

1. Lock (Stop SIgn)
2. Load (Whistle in Mouth)
3. Fire (Whack):cool:

before Ting up someone from the darkside (coach).

But never give the little b**T*rds an inch:D

Either I am not explaining myself well or some are not reading carefully...or a mixture of the two.

The arbitrary number is easy for me to remember. If a coach starts in on us during a game, it reminds me to communicate. Maybe we are ingnoring questions or not really answering them, only giving quick and "canned" responses. Those are necessary during the action, but when there is time am I really trying to difuse the situation or just letting it fester. Believe me, if a coach insist on being an idiot I will stick him/her.

I totally understand the problems with having a slow trigger and do not want to go to the other extreme...I don't want coaches, fellow officials or (more importantly) the assignment secretary to look at me and think "He refuses to communicate well...he'd rather stick you and move on."

A good example (even though it was a player) was last Friday night. Late in the first quarter I called a foul on #10 in white who immediately let out an almost primal yell. I gave him a stare and told him to "cool it" because I need to work on keeping thing under control without always resorting to the whistle. I noticed an odd look from him but kept moving. A few minutes later, my partner called a foul on the same kid and he did the same thing...only this time he was not facing the calling official. When my partner tagged him with his third foul just before the half, there was another yell. I was standing near the coach and asked "What's with him?" Coach replied that the kid had been doing that since grade school...it was a release mechanism he used to keep from getting frustrated. I quick trigger would have saddled that kid with a T and put him in foul trouble early on...but he should probably learn to do that internally and not out loud. :)

We agree.

I work LOTS of baseball. In 2004 I had 12 ejections. In 2005 I had 2 ejections. Does that mean I'm six times better at communication in 2005?

Probably not, I had 6 ejections in 2006. Two during a beanball war, a college player calling me a homer, you know, the usual.

I am working at being the kinder and gentler Rich: http://forum.officiating.com/showthread.php?t=30112

However, I would've tossed this assistant.

Larry - maybe a better goal would be to not assess any unneeded technical fouls (remember the phrase - will this make the game better?). Those T's where, after you give them, you wish you could have them back. Of course, the best way for that to work is to not get down on yourself if you call one, but to analyze why you called the technical and see what (if anything) you could have done to avoid it. If a player/coach/howler monkey deserves a T, give it.

I'd be weary about any sort of numerical limit. Case in point - I had seven technical fouls in the course of two games last Thursday. I don't feel bad about a single one of them.

I used to get this a lot by my 4th year doing intramurals.

"Jeez, we have that dextering Dexter reffing tonight. Keep your dextering mouths shut - he'll T you up."

The smart teams got it.

Jmo, but I honestly feel that you just do what you think is gonna work best for that particular time in that particular game. There's no magic instructional manual that teaches you that you <b>should</b> do <b>this</b> in <b>this</b> particular situation- <b>always</b>. An identical act might mean a quiet warning in one game, but it also might mean an immediate "T" in another game with no warning. You just go with whatever feels right to you at that time. And then you don't second-guess yourself.

You know what I'm talking about, Rich....obviously

It is just taking care of business at the moment - certain things will go down differently on different nights - at different moments in the same game.

Example: Last night Girls HSV first quarter 1:50 to play red 23 losses the ball to white 40 who holds the ball above her head - red 23 steps forward toward white 23 - jumps into and swings arm to slap the ball away gets some arm, blow the whistle on the foul pase and watch the action - (on previous foul calls red 23 has whined) - Red 23 looks right at me and says.." you have got to be kidding me!" WHACK! Fouls four and five!
I kind of felt bad for a second - but she just asked me for it - commit an obvious foul then whine about it right to my face and it is your fourth in last 6 minutes! - It did make my life miserable the rest of the night since she was the only ball handler the red team had.

Again, you had to be there, but normally I walk away from a comment like that and go about the business of reporting the foul.

Of course you may want to whack the coach on general principles for leaving a player in the game with 3 fouls in the first quarter :)

My only regrets have been NOT whacking someone who needs it. A good example (from football) is the coach last season who came onto the field to argue a spearing/disqualification call we made on one of his star players. I gave him a 15-yard USC penalty, but I should've thrown a second flag and tossed him a few seconds later. Didn't want to look like I had it out for him, though, so I didn't. He deserved it and I didn't pull the trigger when I should've.

What'd he do to earn the second USC? (Or, I should say, that should've gotten him the second USC.)

I think these stories are good, but when it comes to high school players and coaches I would probably be on the side of a technical foul. I think I have called four so far or four in the last week. Which ever one is the lowest :D

He stopped at me on the way to his injured player (the spearer) and laid into me for ejecting him (he worked so hard in the gym, blah, blah, blah). I warned him to go to his injured player, and he didn't, so he got flagged.

He kept in and didn't move towards his player, which annoyed me more than anything, to be honest. I told him to get off the field and he told me we'd never work there again. That's where I should've ended his night.

I lost that conference (it's only one game a season, easily replaced), but I blame that on the assignor who would rather stay on the good side of coaches and ADs rather than back the officials. Quite a shame, since he's an official himself. It had nothing to do with me not tossing him. It probably had more to do with me refusing to speak with the athletic director the following Monday, telling him my report to the state was all that needed to be said.

Why? Quick technicals rarely make the game better. I will let the players exhibit a little frustration as long as they drop it right away. It's the second shot or the persistence or the repeat offense that gets whacked.

I'm certainly not gunshy. Like I aid in the last post, I've lost a conference or two because I called USC fouls in football or technicals in basketball. Of course, that has as much to do with our assigning system as anything.