I think the answer lies entirly with what leval of games you are doing and the closeness of the score. If it is a close game and you help one team by preventing turnovers then I wouldn't say anything, just call the violation.

I've got 5 kids and the last one is in 5th grade now. I have been coaching 3rd - 6th grade boys and girls for about 10 years. Teams and coach have been at various levals. I have never appreciated and official coaching my kids. For example, I've been telling her all year to stop carrying the ball and that she is going to get called on it. Now what happens? Some ref takes it upon theirself to tell her again.

Please, Mr. official, call the violation, she knows and it doesn't help her, her team, or her coach for you to tell her again.

Sorry for the venting.
Stan

I think that the original context is being lost here. What we had was a play that would have been a violation had the carried dribble been continued. But the defender swiped the ball as it was being carried, so there was no violation. In this case, the ref is just giving a warning of a potential future violation, not passing on the call and issuing a warning.

As for coaching, I had a ref last year who called one of my players for a hold on an inbounds play. We reset for the inbounds, she gets whistled again. The second was an absolutely atrocious call - all contact was initiated by the offense (three successive hard forearms to the back before my player made any contact) - but that's beside the point other than the fact tha now my player has two fouls AND is really POd about the second. I am trying to sub for her, while the ref proceeds to deliver a lecture to her about her fouling and how if she keeps this up she will be gone, blah, blah, blah. . . I was more mad about the lecture than the bad foul call. Leave the coaching to me.

right
 

Thanks Hawks Coach.I thought the intent of my post was getting twisted into me NOT calling the violation and warning the player. I would not have been doing my job if I had let it go and had every intention of calling the carry. In fact I was so intent on calling the carry that I almost blew the ball dead before it hit the floor OOB after the defender swiped it away.

one or the other
 

As a father/fan/coach, I think a word of advice to the PG was commendable. But to answer a question that wasn't asked, I think a ref should do one thing (quietly offer advice/teaching), OR the other (call the violation/foul), but NEVER both. If you call a violation, any explaining should be done to the coach. We had a situation earlier in the year in a girls HS F/S game where we were trying to foul at the end of a game. The ref didn't call the first 2 attempts, so one of our sophomores fouled hard. The ref called this one, and then lectured the girl that she could hurt someone playing like that. It took all my self control to not scream at him that if he would have called the first 2, she wouldn't have had to foul harder (I know this topic is covered in a different thread)! It took 2 weeks to get that girl back to the proper level of aggressiveness on the court.

Re: one or the other
 

Thanks John. Another good point on this. And remember, we coaches (if we are coaching correctly) know our players and how to communicate effectively with each of them. The message I send to this player may be totally different than that which the ref sends because I know that this player will benefit from hearing it said a certain way. The ref may wind up doing more harm then good by atempting to coach my player or correct them. Make the call and move on.

I use that type of preventative officiating on the JH girls level all the time, especially when you see their skill levels. UGH!

What you did was fine in my mind. All you did was tell a player he was close to violating the rules and to be careful. That to me is not coaching.