Its a middle school boys game, and a coach keeps yelling at me about my calls. They are good, fair calls, in my judgement. And to top it off, this coach is ALSO an official. Well, I offered him my whistle, but he wouldnt take it. If he WERE willing to take it, should I give it to him? They play by high school rules, but it is a VERY 'intramural' atmosphere. So, would I be VERY wrong in giving someone my whistle in this type of atmosphere? Working rec games with kids, I was in the same situation with a coach who was waiting for his team to play (3rd grade boys, mind you). He was real nice though, and apologized as I jokingly offered my whistle to him. I understand, that this would be totally inappropriate in an official league. So, what do you think?

I think it's bad form to offer the whistle, or your shirt,
as you've found out. A better move might be to offer to
blow the whistle to T the guy up.

(BTW, I'll never use a whistle someone else has used
simply for health reasons! Yuch!)

JWalker,
Stay as professional as you can at all times.
If you offer your whistle again, be ready for any consequence.
Let "them" be the fool.
How would it look to you if you saw a veteran official do the same in an important game? Childish? Playful?
Do this thing Right!
mick

This happened in a boy's varsity scrimmage a couple of years ago. The coach kept yelling, screaming, being a horse's a@@ and one of the officials (senior official) asked the coach if he wanted to swap places and the coach said yes. So, they did, and the official yelled, screamed, etc., at the coach. It was funny in a way because the coach kept looking at the official sitting on the bench yelling and screaming at him and the coach missed umpteen fouls/violations. After about 2-3 minutes, the coach told the official that they should switch back and the coach never said another word to the official. I don't think I would have done this, but it was sort of funny.

I think there is a proper Davism for this situation. Mark Padgett will correct me if I'm wrong.

Ref: Coach, before you call a foul, you have to raise your hand in a fist and blow your whislt.

Coach: I don't have a whistle.

Ref: Exactly.

I know it goes something like that.

ren

I think that we all need to remember that we should work every game the same way, whether it be a rec game or the state championship because to the kids it is the BIG TILT. If a coach or a fan is taking away from the game than WACK EM or GET RID OF THEM. I am sure most of these tournaments have supervisors or game management so make them earn their pay.

While offering the coach a whistle might be funny in certain instances, don't stoop to that. It makes the game unprofessional which isn't fair to the kids. If he's being a horse's ***, that's exactly what the technical foul is for. If he needs two "T's," send him/her packing!

If dblref's story happened around here in a school game, I think both the ref and the coach would be suspended for quite a while.

Z

Actually, that was a quote from someone else, not Dave. The "official" Davism for this situation is:

"Coach, let's switch places. You come out here and ref, and I'll go sit on the bench and act like a jackass."

The official involved in the scenario I described was properly chastised for stooping to that level. I personally would not do what he did because we should be above all of that. When we work the scrimmages, it is usually pretty flexible in how things are handled. By that I mean that we do the scrimmages as a "freebie" and the coaches can ask us to stop play at any time if they want to talk to their teams about what was just called or not called. We call it just like a "real" game, but we are mainly doing it for the teams. It also helps us to get rid of the rust, so to speak. Some of our officials do not do any games after the scholastic season ends. In Virginia, AA and A level girls play in the fall (I think this is the last year for this). I try to work year round.

I hate too, but I have to put my story into this. While watching a 6th grade girls rec league game with a varsity coach as a ref I apparently got to vocal when one of the guys mistakenly called a five second call when the player switched from holding to dribbling, then the other ref, errr, coach didn't call jack when she dribbled for 15 seconds right in front of him. He offered me the whistle and didn't know that I would have loved to take it had I not been in street shoes. Boy, was he surprised when I finally got to do one of his varsity games. I don't hold a grudge but it was fun to make him wonder.