Question from a coach

[bainsey]

CoachJW:

Thanks for the post. A few thoughts...

After opening night in my neck of the woods, I was lurking our state's fan message board. There was one particular thread regarding officials calling "too many" fouls. In one game, 76 fouls were called.

Of course, you had your typical "no fan wants to see that" comments, and squarely blamed the officials for making the games frustrating to watch. As I look back, I didn't see as many complaints since opening night, and my best guess is the players adapted. My point is, we shouldn't care what the fans think. As you correctly point out, we have a job to do.

As to how you can address what you see, I say in every pre-game to "question whatever you like, as long as you're civil about it." (No-one has ever taken advantage of this to where they're questioning everything.) I don't know how you can be polite "to a fault." Granted, every official has his individual threshold, but I don't see how you can go wrong with polite requests and questions. I also like JMF's suggestion of suggestion of a video to the supervisor(s). We're always learning.

Keep on advocating, sir. Good luck the rest of the season.