Questionable T?
 

I'd love to post this anonymously, but I'll take the blame here.

1st "T" of the year last night. Last year I had about 15 total and all were good. I have done 17 games to date, mostly varsity.

Here's the situation. #10 for visitor fouls #21 for home team hard. My partner has the foul. I hear #10 say something to the effect about "bringing that soft a$$ something something," but I can make it out real well because she is wearing a mouth guard. I let it go, it's fairly early in the game and no other problems. Then 3 plays later, 10 and 21 on a Free throw 21 has inside position and gets knocked to the floor hard, she has to leave the game, they were not my responsibility so, I missed exactly what happened. Half time.

Partners talk about what happened in 1st half and I let them know ( I am the R ) that we weren't going to put up with any trash talk for #10 and we talked about the 2 hard contacts between 10 and 21.

Visitors down by about 14 in 3rd and they are making a comeback cut the lead to about 7. Home team scores and 10 is mouthing off, but because she has a mouth piece in I can't make out what she is saying. Her mannerisms lead me to believe that she was complaining about the no call, perhaps there was a missed walk on home team, I don't know. I was in "C" and closest to the action. I "T" her up for mouthing off.

Coach asks why I "T'ed" her and I explain that she had trash talked earlier and I felt she was doing the same thing this time, but I couldn't make out her words because of the mouth guard. Coach not happy. Fans less happy and they are riding me the rest of the game. Home team runs off 10 straight and has a good lead again. Visitors cut it to a tie in the fourth then we have to call a lot of fouls in the last minute and home team wins it at the Free throw line by 4 points making 4 of 6 FTs.

How bad was this "T". I don't feel good about it because I couldn't make out what she said, but there had been an accumulative behavior to that point.

Regarding 21 going to the floor on the FT. I once heard that whenever a player goes to the ground, we have to know why. Maybe if your Ps knew this they could have called a foul which hopefully would prevent the T later on.

As far as the mouthing off goes, even quoting one or two words is better than none. I think you took a chance with not knowing what she said. Maybe she gave a gesture that is inappropriate.

It does sound, albeit in only a small way, that 10 is a bit of a loose cannon, so that T isn't a total surprise.

Edit: of us at the forum, only you were there. How would you have felt if you didn't call the T? Were 10's actions escalating?

This sounds like one of those HTBT plays, but Ts aren't warranted only because of what players/coaches say. Their actions can lead to a good T as well.

Her mannerisms lead me to believe that she was complaining about the no call

I wouldn't have told the coach about something that happened in the 1st half which lead to a 2nd half T though. JMO

Coach asks why I "T'ed" her and I explain that she had trash talked earlier

I don't like a T when you have no smoking gun.

In a sitch like yours, I like to enlist the coach's help. After the half, I might have spoken to her coach: "Coach, #10 has been rough and has shown some attitude out there. I know we both want to keep her in the game."

This isn't exactly a warning, but rather information about what you've observed. And if you end up giving her a T, it will be no surprise to the coach.

Good stuff! I had a similar situation with a mouthy knucklehead. After reporting a foul, I asked the coach to help me out with #44 (knucklehead) as he was too mouthy & should focus on playing ball as opposed to officiating. He pulled the player out of the game immediately, got in his face & sent him to the back to the table.
Needless to say, when I had to take care of business (about 3 minutes later) coach already knew the deal.

I tried...

Excellent advice, thanks. Coach did remove the player at that point and this was a good player, skill wise, but her team came back better without her.

Sounds like another "had to be there" situation. Mannerisms/body language may give you ammo to hand out a T, but personally I would probably not have T'd cuz you didn't hear what the player said.

You T'd her for mouthing off. Most coaches are going to ask "What did she say?" The problem comes up with the fact that you told the coach you "couldn't make out her words". That's kind of like getting pulled over by the police for speeding, but they can't tell you how fast you were going. Coach is unhappy, and rightfully so...

MA Ref:

Does the Mass. mandatory mouth guard rule make this kind of action harder to officiate?

MTD, Sr.

Lord knows I'm in favor of grabbing T's when I can get them, but I always make sure I can justify them, usually, .

Since T's are a point of emphasis for me this year I'm gonna go with NOT a good T. :cool:

Mouth guard isn't mandatory anymore (thankfully). It was changed to just being "recommended" to teams after only 1 or 2 seasons. Since they dropped it, my experience is that most kids don't wear them anymore. They weren't used to wearing them and, in some cases they found it difficult to breathe, and point guards bringing the ball up the court called out plays that sounded all garbled. I can't tell you how many times I saw one dropped on the floor, and since they couldn't play without it, kids just pick it up and put it back in their mouth.

But back to your point, when they were required, most kids took them out to speak, which made our job easier when it comes to listening for unsportsmanlike conduct. No point in trash-talking your opponent when they can't understand you...

Both situations should have been addressed -- talking to the player, the captain, the coach.

I wouldn't give a T if I wasn't reasonably sure what was said or the actions weren't obvious to all involved.

IMO you should have said something directly to #10 at some point prior to the 'T' if you knew she was a problem child and then told the coach "hey, we've warned #10 about her behavior".

I think the bolded verbiage is unnecessary. Not our job to tell players what to focus on. Let the coach know you are having a problem and leave it at that....IMO

My mentor said the same thing. I have to remember that less is more...

:eek:

Could have used this advice/tactic....and I will in the future.

8th Grade Girls game. V down by 30 or so. Really a route. One of the only V Girls with any skills is getting frustrated - and it shows. I had the opportunity to talk to her during an inbounds play and as I handed her the ball I told her she needed to relax and play the game as she was getting a little "out of control." I then handed her the ball and off we go.

A few minutes later there's a scrum on the floor for a loose ball and she is fighting for it. TWEET! Now, I normally go toward the action (as I've been taught) and say something like, "easy, easy," trying to let them know we're here and the play is over. She keeps fighting for the ball and wrestling and swinging (I didn't call a foul). TWEET! I yelled, "ENOUGH!

Well, apparently, I hurt this Girls feelings. At the next break, the coach told me this young lady was on the bench crying and I shouldn't have raised my voice to her. I explained to the coach what happened previosuly about my warning and she said ok, she wasn't aware of that and asked me to inform her of this type of situation in the future. My partner, whom I worked with many times before agreed with the coach and said I was a bit over the top - I just didn't want it to go any further.

While there was no real opportunity to do so in my case (IMO), it's a good point and lesson learned for me - use the coach.