foul or no foul

[Richard Ogg]

Originally posted by rocky
Hard for me as a coach to reply to a player after a game when he says "they only called that because it didn't go in" true but...

Rocky, probably your best response to the comment is that "When the ball didn't go, that suggested your illegal contact was sufficient to affect the play. That made it a foul. You didn't hit him/her hard enough to constitute a foul if it didn't affect anything. Try to play defense with your feet so that you can get there first next time. If you're beat -- let 'em go."

Obviously it would be best to then follow with some compliment on how well the player did something else in the game, but you already knew that. (Your efforts here on this discussion board indicate your commitment and suggest the basics are already covered.)