The seatbelt

[representing]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

I would get rid of the seatbelt rule, personally. The coach wouldn't lose his box for any reason in my world.

I disagree. The coaching box was given to the coaches as a privilege to coach their players better. They still have to understand that they cannot use it to get closer to a referee to verbally disagree with a referee in an unsporting manner. The first two season that the coaching box was instated, I would tell the coaches during the pre-game meeting that they have the coaching box, but to remember that it is there to can coach the players, not to coach us (the officials). I stopped saying that after the second season.

Let's just agree to disagree on this though.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by representing

I disagree. The coaching box was given to the coaches as a privilege to coach their players better. They still have to understand that they cannot use it to get closer to a referee to verbally disagree with a referee in an unsporting manner. The first two season that the coaching box was instated, I would tell the coaches during the pre-game meeting that they have the coaching box, but to remember that it is there to can coach the players, not to coach us (the officials). I stopped saying that after the second season.

Let's just agree to disagree on this though.

Not sure where to start with this, so perhaps I'll just agree to disagree. Nah.

I wouldn't begin to tell a coach what the proper use of his coaching box is -- his job includes more than coaching his players, though. Asking us questions and being an advocate for his team (within reason) is part of his job as a head coach.

The subvarsity coaches in WI don't have a coaching box, BTW. I haven't worked one of those in a while, but I've noticed a lot of coaches squatting in front of their chairs and that wouldn't get a second notice from me.

Back in my early days, before the box, we used to use a rule of thumb that if he can reach his seat and isn't standing, he's fine.

[jTheUmp]

Having never seen this coach prior to last night, I couldn't tell if his stand-and-squat routine was trying to thumb his nose at the officials, or if he was simply so involved in the game that he was forgetting that he was supposed to be seatbelted. Occasionally, he'd be standing to yell instructions to his players, but from what I remember it seemed like he sat back down pretty quickly after that. Maybe his assistants were reminding him to sit down.

I also don't know if he's one of those "known troublemaker" type coaches or not... like I said, I've been to a basketball game for this school before.

Whatever the case, he wasn't causing problems for the officials anymore, so I suppose that's why they left him alone.