Hot dog player talking

[Adam]

Originally Posted by twocentsworth

what is this.... some sort of political discussion where liberal and conservative commentators are ridiculously parsing words to extract an obfuscated meaning that belies the original intent of the message?....

what's the difference between: "Next time is a T" or "Next time I will take care of it myself"?

the answer: nothing.
btw, what you've described as an "ultimatum", is simply an official telling a coach/player that the behavior in question is unacceptable and then explaining the consequence that will occur if/when the behavior is repeated.

that is EXACTLY the same formula used in the rulebook (i.e. if you travel...the other team gets the ball....).

I'll take the blame for not being clear.

Frankly, you're right, there's no real difference between these two.

I don't recommend either, for the same reason I don't recommend telling coaches in the pregame meeting that you're going to be watching for hand checks, or that you'll try to talk the kids out of the lane.

You tell a coach "next time it's a T," and then the next time is something really miniature and you decide to ignore it, for whatever reason, then your credibility is gone. Alternatively, you end up ringing up a kid when he turns around wrong, or when he yells something to his coach.

Just ask him to deal with it, no need to even insinuate that next time you'll have anything; it should be implied. The coach gets it, and if he doesn't, he will when you ring Johnny up. I tend to simply tell the coach that there's a problem brewing and let them deal with it as they see fit.

As I said when I started down this path, this is just my recommendation. If threatening a T works for you, good. Some can successfully use a stop sign, due to regional and personality differences. I haven't been able to.