"That was a WEAK foul!!!"
 

May have kicked a technical foul last night. Very competitive MS boys game. B spectators quite vocal, bordering on abusive/personal comments toward officials. A1 is driving across the lane when he is hacked on the arm By B1 as he is gathering the ball. Coach B is immediately asking me what B1 did. After reporting the foul, I explained the call to him. He huffs and stomps off yelling, "That was a WEAK foul!!!" I took it as directed at me and my call (and possibly inciting his already boisterous crowd). After meeting with my partner and going over the foul shooting order, etc., Coach B called me over (calmly) and contended that he was yelling at his player. Until that moment I had not considered that as a possibility. I explained the way I perceived it and we moved on. After that we had a better game.

Doesn't sound like the way coach's "speak" to player. Sounds like the T worked the way it should.

This was directed at you. Good call on the T, and don't think anything else about it. He can call you over after the fact and say it wasn't directed at you, but if he does that right after you explained to him what happened on the play -- its a T.

"I wasn't talking to you" is the oldest, and weakest, defense in the coaching book. I'm guessing he hadn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt up to that point.

Prime Example.

Fast break to A1 dribbling towards the basket, A2, running along sets an illegal screen on B1 tryining to get across to A1. I am opposite the table and coach jumps and yells as loud as he can, "That is pathetic, just pathetic". I give him a T. He then says he wasn't talking about me, and say the call was pathetic not me.

Weak indeed. A good response is, "Coach I know who you were talking to." Not antagonistic, sarcastic, or disrespectful, but it doesn't let him slide nor invite further discussion.

Or, for my fellow English speakers, "Coach, I know to whom you were talking." ;)

Now, if I just had a good response to the new coach fave around here: "C'mon, maven, you're better than that!" My most recent response to that one is, "Thanks, coach!"

Nice Catch!
 

Attention: Grammar Police Alert . . .

Oh, nevermind. ;)

I told a player once, "No, you were talking to me through your teammates." I'll go with yours instead.

On your last, depending on my rapport, I might respond with, "I think we both know I'm not."

I've warned a coach who was having a very audible convo with his player by telling him that's the type of conversation I don't want to hear in the future.

My assignor must not agree - he keeps sending me to your games.

"I understand Coach. The T wasn't because you're pathetic....it's because what you said was pathetic."

+1

And there is the answer... Good T.

The answer to whether it was a good T rarely involves asking if the game got better. The two are perhaps correlated, but not causal.

Agreed, but what the OP described (raucous crowd and borderline coach) makes me think the it was casual in this case. Just my opinion.