Coach thinks he's home team - he's not

[Mark Padgett]

Last night - "competitive" G8 game. Game starts and about a minute in there's a held ball (gee, what's new?) and the arrow is to home because visitors got the opening tip. I indicate "white ball". I should mention that both my partner and I keep track of possession plus the table was keeping it up on the board (not that usual in this league). The visiting HC screams, "It's our ball, even the scoreboard says so!" I look up at it again and it still says "home". I have it for home and I ask my partner and he also has it for home. I tell the coach that both officials have the arrow for the white team and so does the scoreboard. He says, "But we're the home team, aren't we?" No one had scored yet so there was no score on the board.

I told him that no, he was the visitors which was indicated by two things: one - his team was wearing red uniforms while the other team had on white ones and two - his team was from the other part of the metro area while the other team was from the city we were in, as it said on their uniforms. Did he think his team played home games on the other side of town? I also informed him that his team got the first possession on the opening tip and this was the first held ball. He replied, "What difference does that make?"

I was pretty much able to ignore him the rest of the game. BTW - his team won by almost 20.

Whenever I get coaches like that, I maintain my sanity by remembering they're all volunteers and there wouldn't be any games without them stepping up. That being said, I wish they'd read a rulebook at least once in their lives.