Blowout becomes a mess

[Nevadaref]

"the push was called, it just ended ugly with a handful of jersey"

The way I understand this, it was one continuous act. I would penalize the according to the most severe aspect of the play. That's the handful of jersey.

[CJRef]

Nevada...I've got to agree with you on most everything...

Apparently I'm the one confusing you with my description, let's try this B 's hand got stuck almost "in" the jersey, after the whistle had blown for the push. Obviously it won't make sense unless you see it, but there really was not an intentional foul there.

We did take the chicken way out with the other t's but I think the other thing that crossed the R's mind was that the f-bomb does not merit an automatic flagrant in our area. Obviously given the climate of the situation, I think those were flagrants. We were doing a disservice to our fellow officials that work HS games on a regular basis.

What if the head coach hadn't gone along with your request? Now you're threatening a forefit, which would be allowable if they were failing to comply with a technical foul. But in my opinion you haven't issued a valid technical at that point (not on a specific person) and you've also issued an invalid ultimatum. Granted at this point there's no NFHS rules concerning this.

I agree that the NFHS needs to address these types of situations, bench decorum keeps on getting worse every year, especially from the assistants and other bench personnel. Adopting the NCAA rule would work for me.

[gordon30307]

Originally Posted by CJRef

Girls Varsity. Team A is up by 20, wants an intentional called with 8 seconds left, doesn't get it. Trail is right in front of A's bench. Trail hears a male voice yell "You're un****ing believable" from the bench. Could not have been the players (girls), trainer or head coach (women), no spectators behind the bench, so it leaves one the three male assistants. Trail spins around instantly but all three have their poker faces on. Trail blows whistle, walks to table and announces a T on the head coach, she then loses it. By now the lead is over at the table to get him out of there but before he does, head coach says "How can you call that on me, I didn't say it" to which the trail tells the head coach she's in charge of the bench, that's why she picked it up. As that is happening, one of the assistants gets in the way and says "get this dumbass (unfortunately I'm pretty sure he was referring to my partner) out of here". I'm now over in the area while trying to keep on eye on the players. As my partners are coming to meet with me away from the bench, I hear another one of the assistants yell directly at us "What a f***ing joke". We discuss that we now have two more technicals and an ejection. I go to report what we have, the bench all of a sudden calmed down, coach leaves, we shoot the free throws and finish the game.

The whole thing took us by surprise since they hadn't said a word the entire game and the foul they wanted was for an accidental jersey grab.
Afterwards we discussed the situation at length and discussed variations and other questions. What is the most effective way to deal with a bench issue that merits a technical but cannot be attributed to an individual? Would you have a flagrant for the original comment?

An ejection is in order. However, ejecting the Head Coach is an injustice because obviously she didn't do it. I would:

1. Ask the Head Coach who did it. If she didn't know. Check with the Table they might be able to point you in the right direction..

2.I would get the three Asst. Coaches together (if I'm 100% certain one of them is the culprit) and ask the guilty one to fess up.

3. If the offender doesn't step forward I would tell them I'm going to pick one and he will be the one ejected. Hopefully peer pressure will cause the guilty one to step forward.

4. If not I pick one at random and go from there.

I'm glad I wasn't there.

[Chess Ref]

Originally Posted by gordon30307

An ejection is in order. However, ejecting the Head Coach is an injustice because obviously she didn't do it. I would:

1. Ask the Head Coach who did it. If she didn't know. Check with the Table they might be able to point you in the right direction..

2.I would get the three Asst. Coaches together (if I'm 100% certain one of them is the culprit) and ask the guilty one to fess up.

3. If the offender doesn't step forward I would tell them I'm going to pick one and he will be the one ejected. Hopefully peer pressure will cause the guilty one to step forward.

4. If not I pick one at random and go from there.

I'm glad I wasn't there.

So in order to give "justice" to the head coach we're going to take a chance on doing an injustice to a possibly not guilty Assistiant coach ?

[gordon30307]

Originally Posted by Chess Ref

So in order to give "justice" to the head coach we're going to take a chance on doing an injustice to a possibly not guilty Assistiant coach ?

So you're going to dump the Head Coach knowing that she's not the culprit. That's probably what caused the sh**house in the first place. In all probability one of the assistants will fess up. If they don't... oh well.

[Adam]

The HC wasn't dumped until the third bench T (one direct, and two indirects.)

[Texas Aggie]

Mark: agree with just about everything you wrote up until the forfeit part. Even under this sitch, don't. Travesty and refusal to play are about (there may be a few others -- like threats, but not this) the only things that are going to lead to an actual forfeit. The remedy here is the game report.

Don't compound a bad situation that you have nothing to do with by making yourself a target for criticism. You can justify all your calls, even if the judgment was questionable. If you forfeit this game, the coaches now have the "ability" to dodge any discussion of their behavior by bringing this up, and SOMEONE, justified or not, will listen. In other words, don't stretch a forfeit -- you either have good grounds for it, or you don't do it. If you have to ask, don't.

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

Mark: agree with just about everything you wrote up until the forfeit part. Even under this sitch, don't. Travesty and refusal to play are about (there may be a few others -- like threats, but not this) the only things that are going to lead to an actual forfeit. The remedy here is the game report.

Don't compound a bad situation that you have nothing to do with by making yourself a target for criticism. You can justify all your calls, even if the judgment was questionable. If you forfeit this game, the coaches now have the "ability" to dodge any discussion of their behavior by bringing this up, and SOMEONE, justified or not, will listen. In other words, don't stretch a forfeit -- you either have good grounds for it, or you don't do it. If you have to ask, don't.

Texas:

I probably should have written my feelings more clearly. The R has the final authority as to whether to forfeit a game or not to forfeit a game. If I am the R, while I have the final authority, unless I am working with a real moron, I will not take that action unilaterally. I will get together with my partners and we will discuss whether we need to forfeit the game or not, that is what I meant by polling my partners. But acting in the way the coaches did in this game surely comes close to being a travesty. Their conduct was completely unacceptable.

Item (1): I don't understand this position. Why in Hades name would I care about any criticism I receive. Do you think I really care what some Howler Monkey Coach thinks or any irrational fan or an idiot sports reporter thinks.

Item (2): This statement makes no sense. Who made the forfeiture possible? Why our friendly Howler Monkey Coaches, thats who. The only people who are going to have any sympathy to the coaches are the irrational fans and idiot sports reporters.

If you are afraid of criticism from Howler Monkey Coaches, irrational fans, and/or idiot sports reporters, then my advice to you is to find another advocation because sports officiating is not for you.

MTD, Sr.

[Chess Ref]

Originally Posted by gordon30307

So you're going to dump the Head Coach knowing that she's not the culprit. That's probably what caused the sh**house in the first place. In all probability one of the assistants will fess up. If they don't... oh well.

Well the HC is responsible for the bench personnel. The bench personnel aren't responsible for the HC.

I've read the OP several times and here is what I "get" or don't get.

1st T on bench-no dumping of coach-seatbelted.
2nd T on bench-
3rd T on bench-coach leaves now.


So if I am reading this right it doesn't matter who got charged with the 1st T cause we now have 3 and the coach is done.

If I'm wrong about this I am open to being educated.

I don't think I'm going to spend alot of time going Columbo on who said what .

[Texas Aggie]

Why in Hades name would I care about any criticism I receive.

I'm talking about criticism from your assignor, board, state association, etc., and I'm a little surprised you would think I meant anyone else. In other words, criticism that makes a difference in your schedule, advancement, playoff game assignments, etc. Forfeiture is such a drastic action that its one of those things that has to be an absolute no brainer, or you are going to get yourself is a boatload of trouble. At least, where I am, you will.

I realize the coaches' actions are what lead to your bringing up the forfeiture, but you are the one handing down the remedy and if it doesn't fit the crime, the focus CAN be put on you. All I'm saying is don't give them that chance. If you have minimal time left in any game and continuing play would not represent a security risk, then I'd be hard pressed to think of a situation where a forfeit is necessary. I'm sure there are things we can all come up with given time that would lead to one, but coaches cussing at refs doesn't come anywhere close.

If you knew me for even 5 minutes, you would never have been able to type straight enough to get that last paragraph out. My wife and close friends would die laughing hearing that.

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

I'm talking about criticism from your assignor, board, state association, etc., and I'm a little surprised you would think I meant anyone else. In other words, criticism that makes a difference in your schedule, advancement, playoff game assignments, etc. Forfeiture is such a drastic action that its one of those things that has to be an absolute no brainer, or you are going to get yourself is a boatload of trouble. At least, where I am, you will.

I realize the coaches' actions are what lead to your bringing up the forfeiture, but you are the one handing down the remedy and if it doesn't fit the crime, the focus CAN be put on you. All I'm saying is don't give them that chance. If you have minimal time left in any game and continuing play would not represent a security risk, then I'd be hard pressed to think of a situation where a forfeit is necessary. I'm sure there are things we can all come up with given time that would lead to one, but coaches cussing at refs doesn't come anywhere close.

If you knew me for even 5 minutes, you would never have been able to type straight enough to get that last paragraph out. My wife and close friends would die laughing hearing that.

Texas:

Your latest post leads me to believe that you are afraid of your assignor, your local association, and your state association. A head coach and his two of his three assistants, of a team who is winning by 20 points with just 8 secons left in the game, go absolutely wild. I didn't say that a forfeit was an absolute in this case. In 37 years of officiating I have been involved in two forfeits at the H.S. level (both JV games) and ended one VAR game with less than 10 seconds left in the game when fans spilled onto the court. I was the R in of the JV games and the U in the other JV and the VAR game.

I am not advocating a blanket decision to forfeit the game. Each situation has its own dynamics. Did the AD or Pricipal of the team involved get to the bench area and take control of their coaches like they should have done, or did they take their coaches side and interfere with your game administration. Those are just a couple of things that an officiating crew would discuss before forfeiting a game. I think that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill about my comments concerning a possible forfeit.

As I said in my first post, if the conditions warrant certain action and you do not take it because you are afraid of being criticized for taking that action by your superiors, then you have idiots for superiors, and you need to reevaluate your situation and if you are really cut out for this type of avocation.

MTD, Sr.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

"The push was called, it just ended ugly with a handful of jersey"

We would have had to be there to comment on the correct call, but, again, without being there, from the post, it appears that the push came before the jersey tug. Is it possible that once the whistle was blown for the push, that the defender could have been pulling on the jersey to prevent the offensive player from falling down?

Also, is it possible to have two separate calls here, a common foul for the push, and a technical intentional foul for the jersey tug during the dead ball immediately after the first foul? We're not supposed to ignore intentional or flagrant fouls during dead ball periods.

Again, I guess that you had to be there?

[RCBSports]

Originally Posted by blindzebra

Second, get away from the darn bench.

If a second or third T gets given make sure it's obvious that the bench earned it. If you are too close it gives the perception you are baiting them, if you are across the court it becomes obvious who is causing the situation.

Get together, sort out what gets shot where, at a distance and then go tell the HC she has a seat for the indirect caused by her assistant...if you had the foul call that started the mess even better, because then you can explain why you didn't have an intentional to the HC.

Yea, during a youth league I was working, I called a T on a coach saying that I was a F'en idiot, I called the T and him and I got into a little dispute. Afterwords, my partner told me after calling a T get away from the area. Take another spot. If they have a question, they can call a timeout and ask politely, if not, after the games works as well.

But yea, the whole problem had to suck. I hate when things go like that. I would handle it like this. Since we don't have a Bench T I would call an indirect T on the coach; next I would have both coaches report to the table and lay down the ground rules. I would say "Ok, I want this game under control. I don't want to hear another word out of anyones mouth. If you have a question, ask, but don't shout or course."

After words, call a tight game. Calling a tight game early normally gets rid of all problems during the second half. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks

[blindzebra]

Originally Posted by RCBSports

Yea, during a youth league I was working, I called a T on a coach saying that I was a F'en idiot, I called the T and him and I got into a little dispute. Afterwords, my partner told me after calling a T get away from the area. Take another spot. If they have a question, they can call a timeout and ask politely, if not, after the games works as well.

But yea, the whole problem had to suck. I hate when things go like that. I would handle it like this. Since we don't have a Bench T I would call an indirect T on the coach; next I would have both coaches report to the table and lay down the ground rules. I would say "Ok, I want this game under control. I don't want to hear another word out of anyones mouth. If you have a question, ask, but don't shout or course."

After words, call a tight game. Calling a tight game early normally gets rid of all problems during the second half. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks

There's no need to get away from a coach that said that because he should have gotten tossed for a flagrant T.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by blindzebra

There's no need to get away from a coach that said that because he should have gotten tossed for a flagrant T.

Is that because you'd personally let him stay and coach anyway, and wander while doing so?