Coach's surprising comment
 

Worked three boys rec games yesterday - two 6th grade and one 8th grade. One of the 6th grade teams played back-to-back games. They got blown out in both by at least 35 points. After their second loss, one of their players was at the bench and stated pretty loudly "Those refs stink". His coach got right in front of him and said "Don't blame the refs when you play bad. We lost those games because the other teams played much better than we did. The refs had nothing to do with it."

I almost wanted to go over and give him a big hug, but naah.

Sadly, I've never heard this from a coach before. They have an opportunity to set a good example....not saying it's never happened, but I've never heard it.

This happens a lot more often than what we may believe.

I've never coached basketball but did for baseball. One of the repeated messages to the team was to control what you are able to and forget the rest. Officials are not in your control so stop worrying about/concentrating on their supposed mistakes.

When I was Young . . .
 

When I was on the dark side (BJV) and I had one of my players complain about the officiating, I'd ask how many bad calls the player thought were made up to the point of his complaining. Then I would ask how many turnovers we had. I'd tell him if he didn't know. Then I'd mention that when the number of bad calls were more than the number of actual turnovers, I'd listen to his complaint. Never had to.

Amen!! Don't forget missed FTs & layups...

I have coached football for quite a while now, and will be venturing into coaching basketball in November. I NEVER allow my players or my staff or my parents to use officiating as an excuse. My players hear from me all the time that officials do not win or lose games for us - we do that all on our own. No bad call has ever cost us a game, nor will it ever happen.

So while you may not hear comments like the one Padgett posted, they are stated way more often than many officials believe. Just because you don't hear it on the court doesn't mean that the players don't hear it on a regular basis.

From The Files Of The Mythbusters ...
 

Officials are on the court to be the only unbiased arbiters of the game. Officials are not concerned with who wins or loses, but only fairness and safety. Everyone else in that gym cares about winning, and therefore cannot look at the game objectively. Players commit fouls and violations; officials view those infractions, judge the action, and then apply the rules of the game to what they had viewed. The rules then determine the penalty.

I tell people there are only two (or three) people in the entire gym who don't care who wins - me and my partner(s).

We care about only one thing - that at the end of regulation time, one team has at least one more point than the other team. ;)

Great advice for officials too!

I coach football and we had to remind our players of this a couple times this season. They wanted to piss and moan about a call, and we told them to control what they can control and overcome breaks that went against them.