A new one for me
 

NCAAW, ok actually NAIAW but that doesn't really matter.

I'm U1 watching home team warm up prior to conference play last night. The U2 had just worked a game at the H school two days prior (Tuesday of this week) and had a couple of issues with HC. At about the 4:00 mark, U2 offers to take jackets to the locker room.

Now I'm standing talking to R and we look up to see the home HC striding purposefully across the floor, her eyes fixed on something behind us. She never glances at R or myself, but walks right past us and corners U2 as he comes out of our locker room ... about 10' or so behind us. She begins to have an animated conversation with U2.

My first thought is, "I don't like this." Looking across the court at V HC, I see he is now watching H HC and U2 talk. R sees this as well and we tell U2 to come with us to do introductions with V HC. As U2 walks away from coach, we hear her say, "Well, I'm still mad about that."

Turns out, H HC is telling him the crew from Tuesday night kicked a rule in the game (which her team lost by 14 after having a 6 point halftime lead). Games goes off without a hitch, everyone behaves and home team wins by 10.

Three thoughts:

1. Ever had this happen to you before?
2. How did/would you have handled when/if this happened to your crew?
3. If you're the V HC, what's your view on this ... especially after you lose a game you probably should have won? (As a side, his girls played the first half like a W was a given. Better play the second half, but not enough to catch up).

1. No
2. If I'm the U2, I cut her off at the pass and say "Coach, we're not discussing this tonight." If I'm one of the other crew members I go shield my partner as soon as I see the HC heading his way.
3. Not my problem. What happened Tuesday stays with Tuesday.

Wow. Never had anything like that happen to me. As the corner official, I would have just kept walking until I was standing with the rest of the crew so the HC is basically addressing all of us. As the R, I think I would have stepped in and said something like "That game is over coach...new night, new challenges...let's move on." Of course, that is easy to say with hind sight and from the comfort of a computer. :o

One other thing – and this falls into the “preventive maintenance” category: When I saw I had the same school on my schedule in back-to-back games (for them) I would’ve alerted my assignor. If they left both games on my schedule so be it but I’ve done this at the HS level and every time it’s happened my assignor has changed one of those games.

That coach knows full well that any situations like that are to be addressed to the Supervisor of Officials and the Conference Commissioner.

She was totally out-of-line. If I were there, I'm pretty sure I would have told her directly, "address this with our supervisor, what you are doing now is inappropriate."

Me, too...and I would be calling the supervisor immediately after the game to let him/her know about it - before the Visting Coach does!

I know from reading the R report on Arbiter this morning that this situation showed up there. Also, the U2 indicated he would be calling our supervisor while driving home and filling him in on what happened. He (U2) claimed to be so surprised that the coach was doing what she did ... he said he just wasn't sure what he should say.

FWIW, I agree the R and I should have jumped in sooner and ended the conversation.

U2 was a last minute fill-in on the Thursday night game due to an illness ... supervisor knew it was a back-to-back situation.

There's an old "Davism" for this: "Coach, I'd discuss this with you but I left my English-Jibberish dictionary at home." :D

And discuss it in pregame so partners are aware -- even if it doesn't happen before the game, if you see the beginnings of an animated discussion during the game you can rotate out of it or something.

When the coach approaches, "Coach -- I understand your point of view and I appreciate your feedback and we can have this discussion, but now is not the time or the place."

Had a team three games in a row once (away, home, away). Not a huge deal, but sometimes it's best avoided.

Curious, what was the rule that was kicked?

No one considers a T here? After the officials are in charge, we're letting a coach go across the court and down a hallway to yell at an official? Really?

If I'm U2, I don't have this conversation and get back on the court. "Coach, we're not discussing this right now" is the only thing I'm likely to say. If I'm partner, as soon as I see coach pass me, I'm following (assuming it's somewhat obvious she's headed to my partner).

Equating this to baseball or softball - coach that comes to the plate conference bitching about last game is going to get VERY few words out of their mouth before being sent packing.

Oh, that went without saying for me (obviously :)). As far as I'm concerned the T comes when/if she doesn't get away from me.

I actually did...but figured it was my Cajun temper getting the best of me. I try to keep it under control when on the court and am usually successful. But then again, if an attempt to stop the conversation was unsuccessful and she continued I would issue the T and chalk it up to what Ron White says..."You can't fix stupid."