Enforcing Sportsmanship

[twocentsworth]

Originally Posted by ref3808

I guess we live in a world where we're expected to tolerate to the nth degree the boorish and unacceptable behavior of coaches.

Frankly, once this coach was gone the game was a better contest. Faced with the same scenario I'd take the same action.

ref3808 - sounds like you handled it just fine...oftentimes the game DOES get better once the problem is addressed/removed.

In addition to a general lack/decline of sportsmanship by players and coaches, it has been my experience that more and more officials lack the "people skills" to handle/diffuse situations. I see officials routinely turn to issuing a T or ejection, when there were/are plenty of other remedies that they either don't know how to use or won't use.

Of course some will disagree (and just you wait...they'll be along shortly to do so and tell me i'm wrong...). It is a "chicken or the egg"-type discussion (are the players/coaches causing the ejections or are the lack of people skills/communication skills exacerbating the problem?). IMHO, it is most certainly a little of both. While every situation doesn't call for a T or ejection, I think that officials resort to the T/ejection becuase it is the "easiest thing to do"......