The seatbelt
 

Had a 9th/JV boys doubleheader last night. I stayed to watch the varsity afterwards, and saw an interesting situation develop.

Home team's center gets called for an illegal screen about 20 seconds into the game (and it was the right call). Home team's coach goes nuts, and during V's possession he walks all the way down to the endline to yell at the official who called the foul (who is working as the Lead on the far side of the court).

Trail official calls a foul on a different home team player, and at the same time, the Lead whacks the coach. Coach and whacking official have a short conversation while the T free-throws are being administered, during which I assume they were talking about the illegal screen call.

Anyway, coach should have the seatbelt for the rest of the game, but about 2 minutes later, he stands up and starts squatting in front of his bench. This squatting/standing routine continues for awhile. Eventually, one of the officials says something to him (I assume to remind him of the seatbelt rule). Coach sits down for another 2-3 minutes, then gets back up again.

I left at halftime, so I don't know if the coach continued the stand-and-squat routine.

How much leeway should you give a coach who ignores the seatbelt? I'm thinking one quick warning, then whack, but I'd be interested to see what others have to say.

I know this won't be the popular position here, but if he's simply squatting in front of his seat, I'm probably not going to get in a pissing match over it. Or eject him. If I need to have a heavy hand, I'm going to pick a spot where I need to have it.

If quiet - perhaps out of habit - a quick reminder then WHACK if it happens again. If they aren't quiet - WHACK and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

It may not be popular, but I agree. If I'm going to eject a coach, it will take a lot more than squatting in front of his seat.

I agree with you, however if he is just squatting and not bothering me anymore, well. I see varsity officials putting up with a lot of BS here in Indiana, where the coaches have 100% of the vote as to whether or not you do post season tourney, so you won't even see the first T anyways.

Is he a squatter?
 

:D:D:D

I mean, was he squatting in front of the bench before he got whacked? A lot of coaches like to squat, or take one knee. Does he habitually squat? I personally can't, my knees hurt too much. If he suddenly adopts squatting as a response to being seat belted, then clearly he's just trying to get away with something. In a sense he's saying #%*@ You, you don't control me! Of course he's correct in the sense that if he controls his own self, he gets to keep doing his job. But he's wrong in the sense that if he can't control :Dhis self, then he's going to be shown the door.

Personally, I don't care how wraped up in a game I am, if I got whacked (only happened 1 time so far), or warned, I'm not going to forget about it. Stay on the bench means sit the hell down & do't get up!

May not be popular here, but it's exactly the way I've seen this handled everywhere I've been. And how I would do it as well. I do not want to file a report and hear what my assigner will tell me if I write that the ejection was because he was squatting in front of his chair coaching his kids. My schedule from that point on would likely be affected, and not in a good way.

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

Of course, I would expand the box to 28 feet, too, so maybe my opinion isn't the one the NFHS would like to hear.

Here, I think that rule change would simply be a formality.

Had this happen in a Freshmen game. I whacked the visiting coach in the 3rd quarter for a comment he made following a comment he made in the 2nd quarter. Kept standing up, kneeling, squatting, etc. after several times I told him to sit. Giving him the benefit of the doubt (below JV are usually volunteer coaches not getting paid much if anything around here) because he might not have known what the seatbelt is, after the third time he did it I personally went to him face-to-face and said "coach, I'm not sure if you understand this or not. When any HC gets a Technical, he/she loses the coaching box privilege and must sit the rest of the game" and he said "oh ok, I apologize, I didn't know that" and didn't get out of that chair the rest of the game (except for TOs and stuff).

I'm along the same boat as many on here... no second technical if they're right in front of their chair/spot on the bench. Only if they move a step or two in either direction is when they will get the ejection from me. I don't want to write a report up for something simple like that, and have my assignor find out about it to change my schedule around a bit.

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.

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.

I actually had this exact situation happen a couple of years ago. V coach protests a call a little too vigorously, and gets his first T from one of my partners. I had to remind him twice to remain seated after that - one time was a motion from across the floor to sit back down. He understood both both times; he was doing nothing but coaching his team, however he was standing up out of habit, I guess. Finally we had a quick transition, I was old L/new T coming up the court along the bench, and I almost ran into him as he was standing there yelling instructions to his team. Given the fact I had to slow down and change direction slightly to avoid running into him, it seemed like an easy second T. His first look was "What?!?", then, "Oh...alright...I know...", and he left without further incident.

Ever since then I've been known as the only official in my association to toss a coach for coaching his team. A badge I wear with honor, too. :D

Depends. Maybe he was just going to the bathroom. As I said, Depends. :rolleyes: