Enforcing Sportsmanship

[ref3808]

I worked an AAU tournament this past weekend. During one of the games I ejected a coach. I have no regrets about doing so. I warned him before the first technical, and before the second I asked him to refrain from further comment since I didn't want to issue a second T and force the ejection. He was just one of those coaches who, for whatever reason, didn't want to act appropriately. My suspicion is that this "coach" was a parent who had no inkling about the rules or how to conduct himself. I would have preferred to have my partner issue the second T, but sometimes circumstances are what they are and business needs to be done.

Of course after his ejection he found the tournament director and complained, and after the game I had to rationalize and explain the ejection to my assignor who happened to be working another game in the same facility. And he, I'm quite sure, had to explain it to the tournament director. I really don't have any problem with providing reasonable explanations. Of course the coach didn't bother to explain that he had been warned (twice).

I get it, no one wants a scenario where coaches can't reasonably ask questions regarding calls and team "leaders" are removed without due cause, but I think officials are too frequently assumed to be somehow at fault for ejections involving coaches, when the reality is that there are rules that apply to their behavior and those rules should be enforced as are all other contest rules.

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.