Hey - watch that player (not what you think)

[Mark Padgett]

Earlier I posted that a coach approached my partner and me before a MS girls game and asked us to "watch out" for a player on his own team who generally plays pretty rough. Well, last night, virtually the same thing happened. It was a boys HS rec game and one of the coaches told my partner and me to "please call flagrant fouls" on one of his players for any foul he commits. He said the kid likes to throw elbows and forearms and just gets off on hurting other players. I told him we would call the fouls the same for everyone and if he or anyone else committed a flagrant, we would deal with it appropriately. He said OK and that was it.

The game was pretty close most of the way but there wasn't anything even close to a flagrant. We did have two intentionals near the end when the other team was behind and decided to foul, but they were fairly "normal" intentionals.

Now I wonder how many more times I'm going to hear this from coaches this season. Is it something you guys (and gals) hear often?