Not a big deal but, I thought it was inappropriate and needed to be dealt with, even though I do believe the last two minutes had been helter skelter with several calls that could be questionable on tape, two of three by me. Here is the text that I am sending in, on my "unusual situation report". If approved by all of you by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, of course, I wouldn't dare send it without your opinions. Thanks, Devon.

While at trail official, working a two-person crew, my partner, at lead, partner,
called a pushing foul on a team B player. As I froze, I observed Coach _________ (going to call school in a.m to get that info, not sure of her last name)
clapping, making me think she believed the call had gone against Team A. When my
partner gave me the shooter and reported the foul, the coach realized the call was not
going her way, and she was upset, as it was a close game with less than one minute
remaining in the game. As my partner was preparing to administer the one and one free
throws, I heard three comments from the coach, the last I felt was inappropriate. She said
“that’s on us?”, “how is that on us?”, then as my partner bounced the ball to the shooter,
the coach said, while kneeling in front of the bench, “you guys suck”. I blew a short blast
to stop the free throw, called and reported a technical foul, informed the players to vacate
the lane, conferred with my partner that we would shoot a one and one with the lane
cleared, then shoot two shots for the technical foul. I went to the midcourt line opposite
the table to avoid further conflict with the coach. After shooting the first free throw, I
observed the Team B players, coach, and substitutes, huddling in front of the bench in the
area they would have been during a 30-second timeout. They were clapping in unison, I
believed, at the very least, to be disconcerting to the shooter. I gave a short blast of the
whistle, approached the bench area, told their players to go to the midcourt line and told
the coach to sit down. The game ended with no further incident.

To summarize, there was no problem with the coach, in my opinion, before or after the
described incident. I believe it was simply an inappropriate comment by a frustrated
coach, nothing more.

[Edited by devdog69 on Dec 7th, 2001 at 10:55 AM]

sounds legit. you have to file a report for singled out techs? lucky us we only report ejections!

yes, we have to file "unusual situation reports" good or bad, which is ok as I file as many good as bad.

Starting this year, my association requires us to report (to the assignor) all technicals. We have always been required to report ejections -- player sits out 1 game and if it is the coach, can be 2 games. We are also report unusual situations.

dblref
 

Just curious...

Why did the association opt to have "Ts" reported? Was it to reign in "T" happy officials?

move players to division line
 

Why did you move the players to the division line while the free throws were being shot?

All that is required of players during a free throw with the lane cleared is to be outside the arc, behind the free throw line extended. Plus, if there was only one minute left in the game, the activity that you considered to be possible disconcertion was occurring in the back court.

I do not have a problem with you seating the coach, since the seatbelt rule would have kicked in because of the T.

I did think that they had to be at halfcourt, but of course, there is nothing I can find in the rulebook to say that definitely. They were in the backcourt and I probably wouldn't have said anything if they hadn't been doing an organized cheer that seemed disconcerting to me. So, Bigwhistle, is it ok to let one team stand near the bench and talk to the coach during the shots if they are in the backcourt, even though the other team would be restricted from this because the shots are occurring near their bench? Just asking. Devon.

What happens if you call lots of Ts? Not unusual anymore? Do you still have to report them?;)

I have also wondered in the past about the definition of "disconcert the free thrower." Most refs limit this to what goes on along the lane. As an example along the same lines as Devon's, we have a team that consistently begins clapping and stomping immediately prior to the release of the FT by the shooter. If fans do it, you clearly cannot penalize this conduct. But this is clearly organized, done by players not fans, and has caused more than one shooter to visibly flinch (and miss of course). Doesn't this fall under the rule, since both the intent and the result are disconcertion?

[Edited by Hawks Coach on Dec 7th, 2001 at 10:09 AM]

9-1-5 ...No opponent shall disconcert the free thrower.

I called it last night on a girl behind the shooter. She would walk up behind the shooter and stand, innocently enough, but then as the shooter would start her motion she would squeak her shoes on the floor. After it happened three or four times it was obvious it was intentional. I called it once, it was over no biggie, did consider that I probably could have just said "hey don't do that" and it would have stopped too.

HAWKS COACH
 

DISCONCERTATION in my view is anything done, by the players on the court and/OR bench personnel, to intentionally distract "break the concentration of" the FT Shooter. That is not authorized in the rules. Calling a Time-out is a "legal way" to "ice" (Disconcert) the shooter.

As mentioned earlier, I would "officially" address the inappropriate disconcertation and then "T" it as unsportsmanlike conduct if it continued.

There is nothing wrong with either team standing near its' bench during the free throws with cleared lane. If you think about it, they will be under the coach's direct supervision getting instructions more times than not. The team in the court where the ball is being shot should still be able to be near their coach, just above the free throw line extended. All coaching boxes should be in a spot above this line.

Ok, bigwhistle I will change the way I administer this situation from now on. I will still put a stop to the little chant (that's the word I've been looking for) that they were doing.

Stopping the chant is just good preventative officiating!!

Does this include administrative technicals, and second delay of game warning technicals, etc.? Man - that would be a lot of paperwork.

I almost had a call like this last week. I'm trail, and A1 has two free throws. On the first throw, B1 stands immediately behind the 3pt line, leans as close to the shooter as possible and starts talking (in an obvious attempt to disconcert the shooter). 1st shot goes in, and I tell B1 if he does that again, it's disconcertion.

Of course, I get the "I'm innocent" look, and questions about how that can be against the rules.

(The players also don't seem to understand that coming into the 3pt arc or switching spots are violations after the shooter has the ball. Also, everyone thinks we are playing college ball and goes on the release. :))

williebfree & M. Padgett: My bad, I should have explained it better. We aren't required to report the admin T's. This past year we did see an increase in the number of T's called -- particularly by the non-varsity officials. I had 2 last year and both were deserved. I usually have thick skin but some things I simply will not tolerate.

The NCHSAA required us to report all technicals on players, bench personnel and coaches 4 years ago. Fortunately, I believe I had two that year.

Purpose?
 

how do these associations use these reports - see who gives out too many Ts, deal with problem schools, coaches, or just fill a file drawer? Do they come back to you and question you about the report you have filed, either to get more info against the school or to counsel you on your game management?

I believe in our situation, they were hoping to address problem issues with coaches and players. This was during a period when we were reading a sportsmanhip statement during the captains meeting. The two were hand in hand.

Hawks Coach:

In our association, the assignor wants to see if there is a trend/tendency on a particular school or official or both. In regards to the official, it may (and I emphasize may) be that the official is using the T in place of good game management. We have a couple of officials (varsity) that will T you at the drop of a hat. They are both good officials (mechanics, rules, positioning, etc), but they are T happy. The nuber of T's also count in determining the school sportsmanship award.

I posted yesterday about "drawing the line" for a coach and players, and lo and behold, i used the information last night. 8th grade girls tourney, into the 2nd to last game, the 5th i had done in a row. we were a few min into the first quarter, assistant coach (varsity coach of the high school) gets up and starts yelling "je**** Ch**** reff, do you know how to call a foul?" boom, i t'd him up, green, pick a shooter. coach gets up again, "hey reff, did that make you feel any better?" I walked over to the head coach and told her that her assistant could not be off the bench at any time, for any reason, she starts yelling that he is the head coach, but is sitting and acting as the assistant, he was written as the assistant on the sheet thing at the scorers table, so he was the assistant. then, i went to administer the technical. was this the correct procedure?

Doug, this is a problem area that I saw all day yesterday too. Had a JV tournament and several times the "assistant coach" was up off the bench either coaching or arguing calls. I just don't tolerate it from the assistant and in my case I got it stopped before they caused a problem. At the first opportunity, I went to the "head coach" and said "coach, your assistant can't be up off the bench for any reason during a live ball, help me out please". I usually give it a laugh and smile because everybody knows that now I've got some first year timid, new assistant telling the head varsity coach to have a seat. In your case, I believe when he said "did that make you feel better", I would have taken that as a personal remark and given him a second and removed him. I know that is a move that we all hate to make, but you were clearly justified in the first technical, and he was clearly out of line in the second comment. I don't think you would have any problems getting backup on this situation. Otherwise, sounds like you handled it well, nice job.

Oh, and by the way, I had the same coach again on Saturday that I T'ed on Thursday night (the one I started this thread about). They were warming up at halftime of my first game and I told my partner "I'm going to take care of this right now". I went over and said "coach, is there anything we need to discuss from the other night?". She was very nice, said she was upset about my partner's call going against her in a tight game and was sorry, denied having said that we suck, she claimed it was "that's ridiculous". We then had a nice conversation about personal things (I knew her brother 5 or 6 years back) and everything went great. I believe this approach worked wonderfully in this situation, as I did not want any hard feelings carrying over into another game, and think this let the coach know that would be the case from my angle also. Just thought I would pass that on, may help some newbies handle coaches better. I wouldn't have have guts enough to approach a coach like this last season, but I have forced myself to work very hard on giving coaches the respect they deserve (when they deserve it, of course). This has helped my game management skills tremendously. Since I am obviously not perfect, one thing I probably did do wrong yesterday was let the fans get to me. One team had about two dozen fans that were very boisterous and loud, counting seconds in the lane all the way up to 9 or 10 (even when there wasn't anyone in there), telling me to "watch 31 she's holding in there" during dead balls. I finally let it get to me, and responded to one lady during the first of a two shot free throw when she told me to watch the three seconds. I said "lady, as long as you are yelling about it, I ain't gonna call it, you keep quiet and I'll get it". She said "oh", and some guy said "see". I know I shouldn't have, but it seemed to work at the time, btw, I never called it and told my partner at halftime (before I said this to her) that if he called it I would shoot him. I got a kick out of it because I stayed and watched two games after I was done to help out a couple of newer guys with mechanics and this same team was playing. They got a three second call in the third quarter of that game and I was sitting at the scorers table with my uniform and jacket on and I see this lady in the stands pointing at me and laughing because they finally got a call. I gave the touchdown signal to her and laughed about it to which she either thought was funny or I was the biggest smartass alive, but she was pointing and telling all the other parents about it.

ha, good to know i am not the only one who gets a little cocky when it comes to nasty people. I try not to, but sometimes it just happens. after the games, i had the tournament director come up to me in the hallway, and said, "hey, i heard you gave the gun to a coach" i said yes, and told him what happened. it was interesting, and a learning expierence, a good story

My two cents dev - avoid these interactions with the crowd. This gives you the appearance of playing to the crowd (especially the second incident). It may seem all in fun, but you are not there to entertain.

We had some real crowd problems with one team at our last tournament, a fan ended up getting ejected, the supervisor of the officials' org was in another gym in the school and was summoned, and I think the whole thing was made worse by a ref who got two involved with the crowd. They're not part of the game, and you don't want to bring them into it.