Talking to Pseudo-Coaches

[Juulie Downs]

Game last week, see previous thread.

I whacked home HC somewhere into the second quarter. Some guy in a red shirt started pacing around, I figured he's some sort of authority person here, maybe the AD or the Varsity coach. He talked to HC a couple times, when HC needed calming down.

Start of second half, red-shirt-guy was sitting on the bench with players, coaching some, but not a problem in any way. Pretty soon, he started to get up off the bench to coach. Just a little. We ignored it. Pretty soon, he was up off the bench most of the time, coaching, but still not yelling at us. Still he's not the HC, he's been on the bench, and now he was standing and coaching.

So I went over there and quietly and nicely said, "For the purposes of this game, while you're here on the bench and by the bench, you're an assistant coach, and you need to stay seated or leave the bench area." He said, "Oh, I'm not an assistant, I'm the varsity coach." I said, "Okay. You'll be the varsity coach later, but right now, you're an assistant and you need to follow the rules for assistant coaches, which is to stay seated on the bench." He says, "Oh, I know the rules." I said, "Okay great." Behavior didn't change at all.

I said to my partner, "What about this guy?" Partner said, "Well, we'll give one more warning if we get the chance, but whack if necessary."

Next trip down, I'm trail table-side, right next to red-shirt-guy who is standing up. He says, "You should have called that." I turned and said, "You're an assitant coach, remember," and he said, "Sheez, why don't you relax?"

Im not sure how long I stared at him before I whacked. I couldn't believe he would really say that.

Now my question. Could I have done anything differently?

PS when I reported T, I said, "Technical foul on the home assistant coach." He yelled (from the stands), "I'm NOT the assistant coach!" Bookkeeper looks at me blankly. I say, "Technical foul on that red-shirt-guy for disrespecting an official." Bookkeeper smirks, HC groans and rolls eyes. I hurry to the endline/baseline to adminster the shots.