T for 2

[TimTaylor]

Originally Posted by jdw3018

Completely agreed. Early in the my career I tried the "you coach, I'll officiate" type of line and it never worked well. It certainly didn't make the coach/official relationship better, and often made it worse.

Something along the lines of "We're not going to have that conversation tonight, coach. Do you have a question about the play?" seems to work pretty well for me. I know it invites more conversation where some would prefer to just end it, but I like to show the coach I'm willing to communicate in the appropriate way.

Agree to a point. I have no problem answering questions, and if a coach asks a legitimate question I will answer it, but I'm not going to elicit one from him. To do so only invites a response that might escalate the situation. Suppose in response, he rephrases his statement and asks "When are you going to start calling it both ways?" Then what?

Rather than a verbal reply to an inappropriate comment, if I feel it can't be ignored I'll simply give him the stop sign. They all know what that means, and if they choose to ignore it they do so at their own peril.