what relatioship do official's have with assistant coaches before and during the game

[walter]

Assistants, often times, can be a bigger pain than head coaches. I agree with all here who have said that an assistant gets very little latitude. If an assistant is chirping, at the first opportunity I have, I usually let the head coach know that he/she is in charge of ALL bench personnel. Depending on who the head coach is and how well I know him/her, I've gone so far as tell some head coaches "I'll listen to you but I don't have to listen to him/her". That has worked for me quite well, again with the caveat that you need to know who you're dealing with at the head coach level. As for the who is allowed to stand question. I had a situation once where a head coach told me he had hurt his back and asked if it was ok to let his assistant coach use the coaching box. I told him that was fine as long as he was comfortable giving up the head coaching position. When I explained to him that Rule 1-13 (and yes I quoted the rule) only allows the head coach to use the coaching box. Therefore, if his assistant was going to be head coach for a night, he (the head coach) was bound by all guidelines pertaining to assistant coaches including "official tolerances". At this he laughed and informed me that for one night he'd just have to yell louder from the bench.