Travel Game Follie
 

I had the Championship game of a travel tournament Varsity HS boys age that turned into the game from hades. All because of the poor display of sportsmanship by one team.

Game was at the home teams high school which is a small 1A HS in the middle of no where. Visiting team is a large 4A. 2nd call I have in the game visiting coach is up and hollering about how a in air collision was ticky tack. Whatever.

We keep playing. He barks the whole first half. Nothing excessive, and nothing to warrent a T other than just constant whining over everything.

Partner and I answered his legitimate questions which were not many. At half we decide to let him continue as long as he didn't cross the line. First 30 seconds of the 2nd half he wants a handcheck at the top of the key as the guy passes the ball, no advantage or disadvantage. I am trail table side in front of his bench. He says to his team but loud enough for me to hear "were obviously not going to get that call here". I just shake my head.

My partner then makes a call, in his favor. Coach says to me "its a good thing he's here or we wouldn't get a foul call." I turn and stop sign him and say coach thats enough. I now go to lead under his basket and table side.

His guy drives into 3 people and loses the ball, we are transitioning the other way. He yells as a pass his bench, you probably went to blank high school (the home teams school) didn't you...Idiot!!! As he said this partner called a walk so it was his teams ball (this will come into play later). I turned around and WHACK!!! He then wants to know why he got the T. I said questioning my integrity. We shoot the technical freethrows. Then he requests a full timeout.

He proceeds to meet me, who was opposite table to administer the throw in for the home team, at half court. Screaming that high school had changed the technical rule to point of interuption after a T. I said no coach, get back to your bench. He does not comply and screams YOU DON'T know the rules. WHACK. We will see ya coach.

This guy was unbelievable. The rest of the game his team hacked, mugged and shoved. 3 of them fouled out. One shoved a kid in the back on a breakaway. I call an intentional and he looks at me and tells me that my call was f'ing bs in full words. WHACK, ejection.

Worst game i've ever dealt with.

That was a fun read. Thanks for posting.

Question about the TF (for anyone). In the past, when assessing TF on head coaches, my rationale when asked is "unsportsmanship" or "unsportsmanlike behavior". Would this be better, worse or just as acceptable as the reason used in the OP?

Welcome to the forum. Your tolerance for absorbing abuse from out-of-control coaches may be considered commendable by some and an example of thick skin by others.
My take is you should have taken care of bidness at the first untoward outburst and finished the job soon after. I guarantee you would have had a much more enjoyable experience.

Hope you will stick around and become a solid contributor and gain some valuable insights from the 10 years + of searchable archives on this site, not to mention all our esteemed members!

The fact that you will even answer the question makes you a better person that I. :D

Great first post. Now, in the spirit of the forum, I'll add my thoughts. Take them or leave them. :)
My guess is he is not the normal varsity coach, since it's off season ball, so normal techniques may not work.

Constant whining gets addressed, normally quietly while I stand next to him. "Coach, if you have an actual question, we'll try to answer if we have a chance, but we can't have you complaining about every call."
To me, this is best done during a throwin in front of his bench when you're heading the other way. It give him a chance to think about it.

Assuming you've not addressed anything sooner, this is the point to give him his warning. He's just pushed the envelope of questioning your integrity, and it needs to be stopped here.

This is where you should have rung him up, even without previous warnings.

Agreed. I wouldn't answer that one; he knows exactly why he got rung.

If anything, "Because you'd been asking for one all game and I finally decided to oblige."

Hollering? Barking a whole half? Constantly whining? Directly questioning your integrity several times? Name-calling? Leaving his bench area to go across the court to yap at you? Screaming at you? Screaming at you again?

You were the author of your own misfortune imo. It was the game from Hades because you allowed it to degenerate into that.

If you don't want to take care of bidness, there's no use b!tching about it later. Sorry, but there it is.

Too bad they weren't using the rules used in the spring league I'm working. All unsportsmanlike (not administrative) technicals are two shots, possession AND TWO POINTS!

I'm sure Coach Wonderful would have loved that.

BTW - this facility, which is owned by the regional YMCA, has that rule for all the leagues it runs there, including mens wreck. The only time that rule is not mandatory is if some other entity rents a gym and uses it's own rules.

Wow...this is crazy but we totally agree here!

People are only going to treat you as bad as you let them. I'd have whacked him in the first minute sounds like. It irks me that some officials hide behind the "thick skin" and "high tolerance" cliche's to mask being afraid to handle business.

I would have gone with "name-calling," but that's just me.

For the record, this would have been flagrant. He's directly calling you a cheater, so in my game, he's done.

Interesting.

Let me add, I wouldn't use this in a high school game; then again, the coach would have been taken care of sooner.

If I was working an AAU type game, though, and for whatever reason had allowed the game to progress as this one did without addressing the coach, it's possible that would be the response to come out of my mouth if he asked me such a stupid question.

He should have been listening to the rest of the game on the radio in his car. Oh, it wasn't being broadcast? Too bad.

Thanks for the replies. If this was a normal high school varsity game we would not have gone nearly as far as we did on this occasion. I actually have a reputation as being a guy with a quick trigger but in the championship game of a travel tournament, i try to avoid controversy as much as possible because there is nothing that can happen to these guys other than being removed from the gym. No suspension or nothing.

His questioning of my integrity plus the name calling probably should have been enough to warrent ejection before he met me at half court. However after he met me there, I basically knew that I had given him way too much leeway and he needed to be taken care of.

Not a very good excuse imo. Controversy is an inherent part of our job. If we're doing it properly, somebody...player, coach, fan... is always gonna be a little unhappy with us. That aspect of what we do is something that an official should never think about.

Removing the coach from the gym meant that you wouldn't have had to listen or put up with his continuing crapola, and you'd also would have had no reason to post here complaining about his nonsense. It's amazing how quiet and peaceful a game gets when these yappy jerks are in the parking lot.

Note also that none of this is personal. It's just my opinion of what happened and why it happened.

Welcome to the forum.

First, welcome to the forum.
Second, you have received some excellent feedback which will truly make you a better official if you are ready to take the next step and put it into practice.
Third, don't be turned off of this site by the bluntness of JR's responses. That's just his style. He if very direct and critical. However, I can tell you that he is almost always right and that his thoughts will help you improve. Just consider it tough love.

Now for my comments.

I believe that you know that you didn't deal with this coach in a timely manner and that is why the contest spiraled into the abyss. Since you know that already, there is no reason for me to go through your post and state the critical moments. Snaqwells actually did a fine job of that in post #5. I really believe that you need to fundamentally alter a couple of your notions about what is acceptable behavior and where an official should draw the line.
Specifically, here is what I mean.

1. Barking the whole half/quarter or constant whining over several decisions ARE EXAMPLES OF BEHAVIOR WHICH ARE EXCESSIVE AND DO WARRANT A T. You need to adopt that mindset immediately. Don't ever again think, "Well, he hasn't done/said anything that bad." Become acquainted with what we call the ABS T. The ABS = accumulation of b@*l sh#t. So when considered collectively his whole actions equate to a deserved T.

2. You and your partner made a tremendous mistake IN YOUR THINKING at halftime, which directly led to the game becoming a nightmare in the 2nd half. You were still looking for the one explosion moment from the coach when in fact he had already sneaked across the line without your knowing it, but instead of the two of you stating that you mishandled the first half and going into the 3rd quarter with the mindset of dealing with his behavior, you guys actually decided to allow him to continue his poor behavior! :eek: You must rid your mind of this approach. You need to look in the mirror and say three times, "Nip it in the bud." :)

Now here is where the tough love of JR comes in. You have another mental approach that needs to be fixed. NO EXCUSES! You can't treat championship games differently. You can't treat star players differently. You can't treat big-name coaches differently. You can't avoid the necessary confrontation and tough task of assessing a deserved penalty in a critical situation, if you want to be respected as an official.
JR told you that you can't make excuses for not taking care of business. You allowed yourself (and your partner did too) to be walked all over for way too long because you somehow thought that this was an important game or a summer tournament in which there is no follow-up, and therefore, you needed to put up with more. That's totally false.
Get that kind of thinking out of your head.

If you are selected for championship games or other important assignments, it is because of the job that you NORMALLY do. Don't change that. If anything, the bigger the stage, the more important that it is for you to take care of business right away and not allow problems to develop. (That's how you'll keep getting those games.) You can achieve that through strong and effective communication from the start.

Absolutely. As I previously wrote, you already know this. It's inside of you already. It is now a matter of spending a bit of time reflecting on this game and resolving to not let such happen again. You can do that by immediately changing your mental approach and in the future respecting yourself, the game, and the avocation of officiating by being strong enough to take care of business no matter what the circumstances.

Best Wishes and hope to see many contributions to the forum from you down the road.

Ok....that makes more sense. I figured this is what you meant.

Thanks again for the replies guys. I have been looking for input like this and unlike alot of guys I find in our field that get touchy if you make the smallest comment about how they can improve, I actually respect the heck out of you guys for saying it. I can take it and it makes me better. Most of the stuff is information that I already knew. Such as take care of it early, go ahead and run the guy. I am not going to rip my partner in this game but one peice of background that I should have thrown in is that my partner has been calling for 5 or 6 years and is much older than I am. I am in my early 20's and have only been calling for a year and a half. I don't know if that changes how I should handle everything...It shouldn't. I issued all of the T's during the game.

Sounds like the coach smelled fresh meat and was trying to pick on you. This is what happens when amateur (or is it immature?) coaches try to imitate their idols on TV.

Don't let being the younger guy or less experience guy deter you from wacking ANYONE! I'm 26, started when I was 17 and 9 out of 10 times if there is a technical in my game, I probably called it...We even joke in pregame about how we are going to handle adminstering them..."ok guys, once I give tonights technical, lets makes sure etc etc etc..." lol

Good learning game for ya!

You smart off I'm gonna pull your face out your butt!
 

Tough love? More like Scared Straight.

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