Chair slamming/stomping

I posted this question on the thread that was discussing clipboard throwing, and that thread went into profanity, etc. without anyone answering my question so I'm starting a new thread. However, the idea behind asking it is still the same as when I asked it on the other thread. Please do realize, I know most answers will be HTBT or not automatic, etc., but a discussion on this is valid because some gyms are now being built so teams are not seated on the bleachers but rather on chairs on the floor.

Here goes:

If a coach picks up a chair and slams it straight down (not throwing it Bobby Knight style), automatic T? How about if he lifts his feet high enough and stomps down on it really hard?

Reason I ask is that Bob Erickson (now retired coach from Doane College in Nebraska) was famous for doing the aforementioned antics. Most of the officials that worked those games usually let it slide because he did it out of frustration at his own players and never because he didn't like a call by an official. However, there were a couple of officials who T'd him up the very first time he did it in their games, and a couple of others who would T him up if he did it while Doane was on defense. I'm just curious everyone's thoughts on this.

[Junker]

It depends on what happened right before he slammed the chair. If his team just committed a bad turnover, I have nothing. If he is reacting to a call, he may get the T. Another factor is how often this particular coach was seen doing it. Last year, I am 99.99999% sure a coach kicked his bench at a call. The problem was I had other things going on and I wasn't completely sure it happened so I couldn't call the T.

[reddevil19]

Unless there's a player flying across the sideline at the bench to get a loose ball who totally wipes out the chairs, as a coach, I don't really see why you would have any reason to pick up a chair at all during the game, unless you were about to use it as a prop to make a scene. First, in order to pick it up to do as your situation suggests, you'd have to go around behind it, which is pretty dumb to leave the bench in the first place. Second, slamming a chair seems like something that you'd have to think about doing...doesn't really fit my definition of a "spontaneous" thing to do. If I did what you suggest, I'd not be surprised to get T'd.

As for your second situation, are you talking about being seated and stomping the floor with your foot? Or actually standing there and stomping the seat of the chair? In the former, I'd be very surprised to get a T for reacting to my players without some sort of accompanying language. In the latter, regardless of why it happened, I'd expect to get T'd, and get a reprimand from my admin if at home, and a bill from the school if on the road!

[IREFU2]

Originally Posted by Ref Ump Welsch

I posted this question on the thread that was discussing clipboard throwing, and that thread went into profanity, etc. without anyone answering my question so I'm starting a new thread. However, the idea behind asking it is still the same as when I asked it on the other thread. Please do realize, I know most answers will be HTBT or not automatic, etc., but a discussion on this is valid because some gyms are now being built so teams are not seated on the bleachers but rather on chairs on the floor.

Here goes:

If a coach picks up a chair and slams it straight down (not throwing it Bobby Knight style), automatic T? How about if he lifts his feet high enough and stomps down on it really hard?

Reason I ask is that Bob Erickson (now retired coach from Doane College in Nebraska) was famous for doing the aforementioned antics. Most of the officials that worked those games usually let it slide because he did it out of frustration at his own players and never because he didn't like a call by an official. However, there were a couple of officials who T'd him up the very first time he did it in their games, and a couple of others who would T him up if he did it while Doane was on defense. I'm just curious everyone's thoughts on this.

I am going to take another stab at this question. If you look at 10-4-1, the unsporting acts, you must determine in your judgement his actions. If indeed he is reacting to a call or disagrees with a call and does the above said things, then yes, in my book and the rule book, its an automatic "t". If he is clearly fussing at his kids, then I would go over to him and ask him to kindly not throw stuff around or maybe give him a warning about it. You will find that all officials may have a difference of opinion on this subject. There are too many variables involved.....JMHO.

reddevil,

Bob Erickson was a pretty big guy, 6'5" and built like a LB with a little bit of a belly. He always picked up his chair, which always had his jacket on it about 1 or 2 minutes into the game. He would pick it up by the back and bring it up about a couple of feet in the air, then slam it back right in its spot. Really amazed me. He even took one and flung it across the indoor track in our field house and hit the wall with it (the basketball court was surrounded by a track with the bleachers on one side of the fieldhouse).

Now, the 2nd situation, with him being 6'5", he had no trouble standing and stomping on a chair with one foot. As for being reprimanded by his admin, no go because he was the Athletic Director and the college President was a frat brother. Coach never did the chair stomping/slamming on the road, only at home.

I guess the officials in the old NIAC (Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, later Nebraska/Iowa Athletic Conference) let some of the behavior slide because Erickson was the "dean" of college basketball coaches in Nebraska at that time (he was at Doane before Joe Cipriano was even at Nebraska) and the fact that he was the AD also. Hard to tell, now that he's been retired for 10 years. I would have been curious as to how the GPAC (Great Plains Athletic Conference) officials would have handled him.

[reddevil19]

That guy sounds like he was quite a presence. At the college level, I would think that maybe a coach would get a bit more leeway, plus it sounds like this might be a "Doane being Doane" type thing. At the Frosh HS level, I wouldn't expect the same leeway and certainly don't think enough of myself to expect to get a "me being me" pass .

[JRutledge]

Once again it would depend. We would have to know why he did this, what happened in the game and if the coach was reacting like this before or had been warned. If you want an all or nothing call, then you are not going to get it from me at least. I have been officiating long enough to know that everything cannot be put into a little box and you always have the same solution. It is likely there would be a T, but where I am, what I see and maybe even my knowledge of the history of the coach might affect what I do or not do. I have been in situations where things are not what they seem and actions were handled based on those situations.

And for the record, people answered your question in the previous thread. You cannot dictate why and how people answer your questions. This was not a rules question; this was a judgment or philosophy question.

Peace

[rainmaker]

At the high school level, it would be a 95% automatic for me. Can't say what would happen for that 5% to be okay, but I'm sure there must be something. But unless there's a good explanation, I'm calling it. Just as an expression of anger it's not acceptable, even if it's anger against the team.

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

At the high school level, it would be a 95% automatic for me. Can't say what would happen for that 5% to be okay, but I'm sure there must be something. But unless there's a good explanation, I'm calling it. Just as an expression of anger it's not acceptable, even if it's anger against the team.

You sure you're not a coach?

Originally Posted by JRutledge

And for the record, people answered your question in the previous thread. You cannot dictate why and how people answer your questions. This was not a rules question; this was a judgment or philosophy question.

I wasn't dictating why and how. It was just that the time I looked at the other thread and decided to repost as a new thread, it seemed like my question got lost in the flurry. If you are implying I should have taken the answers about clipboard throwing and profanity and apply it to my question, then you are going off your point about there is no all or nothing. I'm not trying to be a d**khead, but your attitude is the kind that gets students in trouble with me during class and usually get assigned more homework. Maybe I should be making more posts similar to this and creating more "how abouts" just to have you give me the same remark?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Ref Ump Welsch

I wasn't dictating why and how. It was just that the time I looked at the other thread and decided to repost as a new thread, it seemed like my question got lost in the flurry. If you are implying I should have taken the answers about clipboard throwing and profanity and apply it to my question, then you are going off your point about there is no all or nothing. I'm not trying to be a d**khead, but your attitude is the kind that gets students in trouble with me during class and usually get assigned more homework. Maybe I should be making more posts similar to this and creating more "how abouts" just to have you give me the same remark?

Actually I was not implying anything. I said what I wanted to say. If you are not going to ask questions like this, you will get similar type of answers. I am not sure why that would be a problem to say that or why you would think I am upset by the question. Just pointing out that when you ask philosophy kinds of questions you should expect wide ranging answers. Also this is not a classroom. This is an internet site where even a very well asked question is going to bring different points of view.

Then again I was not the one that needed an answer to your question. I guess you will just have to feel slighted in some way.

Peace

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

At the high school level, it would be a 95% automatic for me. Can't say what would happen for that 5% to be okay, but I'm sure there must be something. But unless there's a good explanation, I'm calling it. Just as an expression of anger it's not acceptable, even if it's anger against the team.

I agree with this. His action is what needs to be judged as either acceptable of not and then appropriately penalized. I don't care why he did what he did, I only care that he did it.

I say whack away.