Tough sideline call

[Rich]

I had a play in a varsity girls game a week ago where the defender established LGP and made it impossible for the dribbler to go outside the defender. So what does the dribbler do? She bumps straight into the defender (not enough for a PC foul), the ball goes out of bounds, I give the ball to B, and the coach (who's naturally right in my lap) asks me how that couldn't be a foul.

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

I had a play in a varsity girls game a week ago where the defender established LGP and made it impossible for the dribbler to go outside the defender. So what does the dribbler do? She bumps straight into the defender (not enough for a PC foul), the ball goes out of bounds, I give the ball to B, and the coach (who's naturally right in my lap) asks me how that couldn't be a foul.

"Well, coach, I just didn't see enough contact to call a charge."

Or:

"Well, coach, if I call a charge we're going the other way anyway -- just thought I'd save you a team foul."

[TimTaylor]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

I had a play in a varsity girls game a week ago where the defender established LGP and made it impossible for the dribbler to go outside the defender. So what does the dribbler do? She bumps straight into the defender (not enough for a PC foul), the ball goes out of bounds, I give the ball to B, and the coach (who's naturally right in my lap) asks me how that couldn't be a foul.

Don't you just love it! If I think they"re being rhetorical I simply ignore it....but if it's a sincere question my reply would be something like "Defender had LGP -not enough contact to call a player control foul" or "Defender had LGP coach - do you really want me to call a foul on your own player?"

I know it's rarely a good idea to engage in conversation with a coach, but I actually used the latter version once. Coach had been asking these kind of questions throughout the game and his manner wasn't harassing in the least - it just appeared he really didn't understand the rules all that well. Similar situation to yours early Q3 and very sincerely I used the latter response. His reaction was priceless - reminded me of the line "hung him up" from the Jimmy Buffett song. He just stared at me for a couple seconds with a bewildered look on his face, then said "Oh, OK - thanks." We didn't hear a whole lot from him the rest of the game, so in this case I think it worked out OK.