Part of it is the coaches, part of it is us.

Coaches: We've seen all kinds of example of it. I've had one team this year where their philosophy was to play very agressively, and bring a deep bench. Their coach figures, at least some of the time, that the refs will get tired of calling fouls.

Us: Because we all call the game differently, the players are under the necessity of feeling out the refs. The only way to do that is push the envelope to see where we'll call the fouls.

There is a team in our area that does the same thing. They are relentless. They start at the frosh level, fine tune it at JV and by Varsity time they are a threat to win the sectionals. which they did last year.

I had them last year. My partner was a "talk to them kind of guy". By the end of 1st half of the frosh game he stopped talking and just kept blowing. It took us 4 hours and 15 minutes for the frosh/JV doubleheader. The scorekeeper added the fouls up and said between the two games 141 fouls. It was miserable. They won both of those games by 40 points or so. They were and still are relentless.....

They're all the same
 

I've got a brother-in-law who has coached at various levels and the first thing he told me when I decided to start officiating was to remember the majority of coaches are on a mission to put a doubt in your mind so maybe they will get the next call, whether it is right or not. With a three-man crew, that decreases their odds, which frustrates the morons who are on some benches.