SMEngmann |
Fri Feb 16, 2007 04:15pm |
First, I want to clarify the comments that I made. I will not permit arguing, nor will I argue with an assistant coach, and I have little tolerance with arguing from head coaches. I will also not allow assistant coaches to continually question me. My argument, though, is that in my experience, we as officials are too dismissive of assistant coaches immediately, and that could create an unwanted air of officiousness and it could cut off future avenues. For instance, if an assistant says something like "can you watch 44's screens for me" during a timeout, I will likely respond politely with, "sure" or "I'll give it a look." The attitude, and maybe I'm wrong, that I get from a lot of officials, is that their response would be more along the lines of, "I don't talk to assistant coaches," or "He's the only one that does the talking here (referring to HC)." I think that mentality is counter-productive. I will not, though allow constant questioning or discussion from assistant coaches. I don't work D1 basketball, but in the D1 games that I have watched, there is a good amount of interaction between the assistants and the officials, particularly during timeouts, and not once have I seen the officials rebuff them simply because they are assistants.
JRut, in terms of your baseball argument, I do not umpire baseball, so I can't comment on that, nor do I think you can really equate the two sports. However, the point that you made referred to an assistant coach coming out to argue, which, from my point of view is different than say, if there was a play at 1st base and the first base coach, who is right there, started to dispute the call (before the HC eventually came out). Do you immediately dump the 1st base coach just for questioning your call?
Maybe I'm reading a little too much into this, but I just think assistant coaches can be valuable tools for us in terms of game management, and I don't think that dismissing them immediately just because they're assistants is prudent.
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