Almost an ejection
 

I came the closest tonight to running a head varsity coach in the entire time I've been here.

To set the stage:

Visiting team has 1 win and most of the losses have not been close. We greet the coaches at 1:30 before the game here, so about 1:45 we start the walk across. No visiting team or coaches. No biggy, we'll get the home coach first.

About 30 seconds left, the visiting team arrives. Coach does a drive by -- shakes my hand, tells me his players are dressed legally (it's a required question here) and doesn't introduce himself and doesn't give me time to. No biggy, but pretty consistent with his personality.

30 seconds into the game, partner calls the first foul of the game. Coach is way out of his box. Partner gives the courtesy of asking the coach to be in his box. He gives partner attitude, saying he gets 14 feet and he has no room at the bench area. Partner points to the box and repeats request. Coach goes there. Partner swears he hears the coach laughing at him, but ignores this (like a good partner should if he's not sure).

We made it to halftime, although the coach came close once when I called a player control foul on his 6'6" kid who has little to no skills and uses his free arm to clear space every time he gets the ball in the lane. On the second player control foul I call on him, we come down the floor and I hear the coach, "Are you serious? Do you really think that's a strong call?" and various other whining. By then, I was pretty much done interacting with him. Had the ball not been turned over, this soliloquy probably would've ended in a technical. It's a rout at halftime and we were treated to the coach screaming his head off at his players since his locker room was next to ours. If any coaching was done, we didn't hear it.

Third quarter: Home team steal the ball and it *looks* to the visiting bench like the home player double dribbles, but the ball was actually knocked out of the players hands. It was a legal play. Ball comes down, and as the home player is setting up a 3-point shot (I'm the lead, opposite), I see the visiting coach at least 6 feet out of his box in front of the table wildly gesturing and I heard him scream at the table, "Where did you get these guys?" It was so over the top I whacked him while the shot was in air (and it was in the air as my hand was up for the 3-point attempt). Ball goes through the bucket. 3-pointer and a technical foul.

After we shot the free throws, the visiting coach requests a full timeout and comes out onto the court and summons me over to the bench. I told him that he needed to get back to his bench, that I would come talk to him, but I won't be summoned anywhere. But I went over, cause not going over would've resulted in him getting himself ejected.

When I get there, he doesn't say anything about the technical but instead asks about the shot counting. I told him it was in the air and it counts. He said, "I'll show you a replay. That whistle blew 3 seconds before the shot...."

At this point, I stopped him. I told him, "That's enough about that. You just got a technical foul and you are extremely close to being run out of this gym. Getting yourself ejected here would be a big mistake."

Normally I would not be in favor of talking like this, but this guy was a millimeter from a second technical foul and, quite frankly, it was up to him. I was done trying to keep him in the game -- it was completely up to him.

I think he knew I was serious, cause he actually was silent for a few seconds. I then said, "Remember you have no coaching box now, you're on the bench" and I walked away. It was the end of him running his mouth for the night, although we had a player technical later in the game (like coach, like players) and we had to call a few more fouls than usual to keep the game from getting seriously rough.

After the game: Even more screaming in the locker room. Must be a joy to be on that team.

One more for the week.

Sounds like good game management.....You talked to him and gave him every opportunity to straighten up. Sounds like there would have been little to gain by running him out. He was out of line, but not over the top.

Maybe you would have been doing his team a favor by tossing him. Does an ejection mean a suspension from your state board? This team might benefit from a break from the guy.

Once I tossed an obnoxious coach and the crowd clapped -- parents of both teams.

No suspension, just a form letter saying "don't do it again." I know this from having some ejections in baseball.

Like I said in my car to my partner -- it's funny how in baseball this guy would've definitely gotten chunked but in basketball an ejection is like dropping a nuclear warhead. In 22 years, I've had 2 ejections -- one was a coach who followed me to the locker room at halftime in my third or fourth year (he got a technical in the first half) and the other was a coach at a Christian school 15 years ago (I called the second technical -- the first was by my partner 30 seconds into the game after a block/charge).

Thanks for sharing the story Rich.

Gives us a good insight on one way to handle an interesting situation!

I've only WHACKED one coach and never tossed one. :(

But, I still have plenty of games left in these old bones to improve on that record. ;)

Why?!? Had a game where we tossed both head coaches before halftime. It's just like any other basketball rule. If a player steps outside the guidelines of what's legal, we call a foul. If a coach steps outside the guidelines of sporting behavior, we call a foul. Players foul out all the time. Coaches do too.

It's just not true, not in my experience, not in the six states I've worked in. Ejecting a basketball coach is a much more rare occurrence than ejecting a baseball coach or football coach.

I'm not saying it should be more common. But the same type of behavior should receive the same penalty. And I truly believe that officials try to ignore behavior way too often when it is outside the lines. Example #1 - Bob Huggins
I think most of it is fear of how it will affect officials' schedules.

Not at all in our case. Trust me.

Ejections of coaches are a big deal here in VA. I believe the fine is $500 to the school, which I've heard they sometimes schools pass all or part of that fine to the HC.

All ejections get an appeals process prior to the fine being impossed by the VHSL. So anytime we have an HC ejection we have to give our commissioner a written report within a day or two.

I had a game this season which merited an ejection. I had given the first technical and did not want to issue the second one. I should have taken the poison pill though because it carried over into the second game. If I have this school next year and the coaching staff is the same, it WILL be pre-gamed.

I agree in baseball for some reason coaches just its part of the deal. You run them, hey still might kick a bit, but they go. you write up the report, life goes on. While I've given out a few T's to coaches in my first 2 years, I've never been closer to an ejection, but yes there does seem to be that "nuclear warhead" kind of dynamic attached to it.
Nice job with the sitch....I learned a lot from it should I ever be traveling down a similar road with a coach.

I had a similar SIT in a absolute route. He had been whacked once and by the second half it was obvious that he didn't want to be there. He goes into complete retard mode. All three of us agreed that if we had to be here during this horrible game so did he. I want to say it may have been and Earl Strom line. During a time-out I was nearest the opposing team bench. My partners went over and talked to him. They told him in so many words that we all agreed not to run him, and that if we had to be here, so did he. During the same time-out the other coach asked me why we were taking so much crap from him. So I told him the same thing. It was all really pretty awesome. Following the time-out he sat in his chair and didn't say another word. The assistants yelled in plays and defense.

Yesterday I had a 3-person boys game and I didn't know our third (I rode with the guy from Friday night) and he asked where we were this past week.

When I mentioned the teams from Friday, he went into a long story about the same coach. He actually talked to the AD after the 3rd game he had with them and asked the AD why the coach acted the way he did. The AD was surprised at the question, even though she had been to a number of the games.

I didn't ask him if he had given the coach a technical, though, although he mentioned a pair of player technicals as part of the story. I'm guessing he didn't, which reminds me of an old assigner (baseball) of mine -- when an umpire would call to complain about a coach, he'd ask for the ejection report. When the umpire would reply that he didn't eject the coach, the assigner would say, "then you didn't really have a problem, did you?"