I'm The Decision Maker

[Terrapins Fan]

Some of you may recognize that as a statement made by our President. But it gave me a thought.

We are the Decision makers in basketball games.

Personally, I coached for 11 years before I became an official. I felt like there were times when an official didn't like me and called the game against me. Since I have become an official, I don't believe that so much any more. BUT, There are times when a coach gets under my skin. There are times when I hope his team loses. But I don't want to be a part of him losing. Sometimes so much so that even when I should "T" him up I have avoided it so that I didn't become a part of that.

Here's my point ( and I do have one ) Tonight, I had a coach that I "T"ed up his son last week. there was under 1 minute in that game and it was a good call. It was a 1 point game at that point and the team shooting the free throws had 2 for the shooting foul and 2 for the "T" and got the ball scored all 6 points to take the lead and win the game.

Tonight I go to him before the game to explain what had happened at the last game ( I know we have talked about these things before ) I wanted to clear the air before tonight's game. I said to him " Coach last week when we were discussion the "T" on your son," he interrupted and said " We never discussed a "T" and walked away rudely. So I waked away. It doesn't make sense to get on an official on your bad side before or even after a game.

Again to make a point, you really can't say that you make a difference in calling your game based on the attitude of a coach, but do you ever go into a game and hope a team wins over another?

In 8 years, I have had 2 coaches that I have had problems with on a regular basis. ( remember we have 15 schools that we officiate, that means we are going to see these people a lot during a year. One year I had one school 21 times , different levels ( Girls JV and Varsity and Boys JV), but one school )