This year, I am really focusing a lot of effort into improving my communication and confrontation skills so this leads me into a situation from Friday night.

I worked the HL spot for the first time in a while. The visiting team is playing only their first year of varsity football. Last year they only played JV football. So we have a first year varsity coach on the field.

As we are introducing ourselves during the pre-game meeting with the visiting coach, the R mentioned that, in Illinois, sideline enforcement was mandated by the IHSA this year and it would be enforced.

His response, "Well I think officials should pay more attention to the players on the field and not worry about what is happening on the sideline."

I only state this to give you the mindset of this coach.

First quarter, this coaches team is on defense. There is a long run down my sideline. Ball carrier is slightly leading a pursuing defender and a team mate. Team mate goes to block the defender and defender turns his back into the block. No foul because the block would have been from the side and legal had the defender NOT turned his back. He and his coaching staff are YELLING for a block in the back. When asked, I state, "your player turned his back to the block."

Later in first quarter. Assistant coach asks me to watch the fullbacks lead block. Claims he is blocking his linebacker below the waist. My response, "Okay, I will watch for it." I don't see it after a number of plays. My guess is that <B>if it actually happened</b>, it only happened once and nobody on the crew saw it.

Later in first quarter. His team is called for a facemask foul. From our side, it didn't look bad. They are thinking, 5 yarder. R signal 15 yarder and they go ballistic. I tell them I will try to get them answer when I can. Their guys in the crow's nest saw it and said the 15-yarder was a good call. They still feel a little sour over it.


Second quarter and this team is getting spanked, 28-0, and once again they are on defense. Sweep comes to my side. Runner A1 jumps over prone player B2 and is tackled 10 yards later. Head coach comes up to me and asks the question,

Coach: "Isn't hurdling illegal?"

Me: (I shouldn't have responded) Yes coach.

Coach: "Why didn't you call that hurdle?"

Me: There was a hurdle? (I honestly thought I might have missed something and I wasn't trying to be a smart-***).

Coach: You are so concerned about enforcing the sideline policy that you are missing fouls on the field.

(Up to this point, I hadn't said a word to players or coaches about ANYTHING sideline related--it was only brought up in our pregame talk.)

Me: Coach, I didn't see a hurdle. (I then attempted to explain the definition of hurdling but he cut me off).

Coach continues his tyrade about the "missed" hurdle.

He kept up his LOUD tyrade for a full minute and eventually earned himself an UC foul (for which he didn't think he was deserving).

I admit that I was a little frazzled by this coaches antics and his childish behavior when I threw the flag.

My question is this.

How do you handle a coach like this? How would you / do you handle situation like this when you work the wings?

Coaches, how do you like officials to treat you when you think something should have been called and wasn't.




Sorry for the long post!

[Edited by mikesears on Sep 15th, 2003 at 12:42 PM]

Mike you are a long time poster on this board and I enjoy your input.

I do not care what anybody says as an official you do hear what the coach, players and sometimes the crowd as you officiate. It is called the sense of hearing.

Communication is very important between the players/coaches and officials but both parties need to respect the others jobs. I myself grew up as a coaches son and coached myself for about 9 years. There will always be a human error element in both areas. So many times now when a coach yells about a missed call I would like to yell back about his play selection but we know that would be wrong.

As the white hat I tell my guys to talk to the coaches but do not get into long detailed rulings. If the coach is that concerned he may call a timeout and confer with me. When we have timeouts, in between scores, or injury timeouts I may try and explain the situations.

Most times it seems these coaches are yelling and begging when the score starts to go against them. So be patient and polite about it.

Bottom line if you want the respect from the coach you must respect him.

I agree that mutual respect must exist. It clearly wasn't the case with this coach. I really didn't take a bad attitude to my sideline and I really wanted to work with this guy for a positive experience.

I realize it may be difficult without seeing my body language to make a good recommendation but is there something in my post that might suggest that I didn't have respect for this coach?

I try to make myself available to answer legitimate questions and to explain things. Maybe one of my mistakes is that I took, "Isn't hurdling illegal?" as a legitimate question.

No, you were trying to be helpful and honest. I have worn the white the last 4 years and we are going to make a mistake once in awhile. I myself have told players and coaches hey we missed a call sorry. But you can only try as hard as you can on every play.

A funny story about coach confrontations. Here in Iowa late in the year the weather can get nasty. It was a rainy cold night. Last game of the year and 1st place team vs last place team in the conference. You can guess the outcome. I was working the wing that night and one of the assistants was just being a jerk. At this small school the stands were only on one side so the visitors side which I was on were only the players and coaches of the visitors. This guy was just on a roll. Every time something went wrong it was our fault. After one half of this and late into the third he let a couple of special words go. I flagged him for Unsportsmanlike. Now he is really giving me an earful. Not that loud but enough for me and nearby players and chain gang to hear. Finally when the fourth quarter began we took the chains and while waiting for the quarter to begin he came towards me again. I finally said "Coach the weather stinks, cold and rainy but as long as I am outside officiating you are stuck here too so quit trying to get tossed and enjoy the weather with me."
He said nothing the rest of the night and the guys on the Chain Gang just about peed their pants.

This is about where I would start (sternly) saying "That's enough, coach, this discussion is over". If he keeps it up, flag him.

Remember, the rulebook says all these qualify as USC:

"Attempting to influence a decision by an official"
"Disrespectfully addressing an official"
"Indicating objections to an official's decision"

That gives you a lot of leeway for throwing that flag. If you sense that a bad situation is going to get worse, I think it's best to throw the flag early to send a message that unethical/unsportsmanlike behavior by the coaches won't be tolerated.

Some background:
I normally white hat on my crew so it was a totally different experience on the sidelines again. As a crew this year, we have been trying to rotate through the different spots so we all have other officials persepectives on things. My U was Refereeing his first game in 10 years.

After he started his tyrade, I did state, "All right coach, I've heard enough. No more!" Apparently, he didn't hear me because he kept right on going without missing a beat. That is when I flagged him.

After he was flagged, he then tells me he wants to talk to the Referee (normally, I am in that spot). I asked if he would like to take a timeout to do so. He does. We all the timeout and he then goes into a full one minute monologue to the R about needing that call, and how we are so concerned about the sidelines that we are missing things on the field. By this point I am feeling admittedly flabergasted by this guy and he asks why I called U.C on him.

My smart-aleck nature wanted to kick in and I wanted to say any of these:

What actually weant through my mind: "Because you were being an ***".

What I thought about later: "Coach, if I have to explain why, then we are BOTH in for a long night."

OR

"Coach, I would tell you, then it would take the fun out of you actually reading the rulebook."


I controlled myself and didn't say any of these things.

Mike,

Once you told him that if he kept it up, and he did, he was going to get flagged. You then needed to flag him when he kept it up. The way I see it, you didn't flag him, he just flagged himself. You were there to facilitate him.

I also work in Illinois and the guideline that has come from Bloomington has helped to keep coaches off the field. In doing so, it gives the wings and the chain gang more room to work. I noticed this week, (week 3 of a 9 week regular season) that the coaches are really starting to understand that this is going to stick and that they need to adjust their coaching locations to the actual coaching box.

Coach has a medical condition.
 

Mike, you should have asked this coach when he was going to schedule the surgery to have the chip on his shoulder removed...

Mike,

You did the best you could. Sometimes the only things these coaches understand is the flag. You did everything to give him rope and he was not making it easy on you. That is why we can use the sideline warnings and no yardage will be given. If he does not listen, you give the 15 yard variety. Because if he complains about your actions, we know that we will be backed for taking care of this situation. These coaches have been warned big time. And if you knew what Dave Gannaway was doing during the State Final games, you would have no problem nailing this coach. It is not your job to do what the coach thinks you should worry about, he has been told.

Peace

Mike,

I think you did a great job holding your water.

I've also really worked on sideline communication this year. In fact, it's one of the key reasons that I worked semi-pro ball this year. You get a lot of opportunity there to work on your sideline communication.

A couple of things that work for me (you may already use some or all of these techniques):

1. Always ask at the begining of the game who is the 1 person that you should communicate with (this helps me if I have a wacko assistant giving me the business all night; at some point, I just make it the head coach's problem). Same with a get-back coach.

2. When he's yelling about a call, I fight to keep myself outwardly composed and say something like: "Coach, if you want to yell at me, we're done talking. If you would like me to listen to you and discuss a play/rule, then you will need to settle down and speak calmly." This usually resets their attitude. If they don't get calmed down immediately, I'm on to the next spot/play. No time for a loudmouth without discipline!

3. As a coach begins to discuss a play, I will position myself BESIDE him looking onto the field vs. in front of him. It allows me to focus on the movement on the field and keeps him from face to face conflict. It's tough for him to wage war when you are shoulder to shoulder.

4. Before I answer a question, I almost always ask the coach a question to clarify what I heard. This forces me to listen intently, think about what he said, and then formulate a question to confirm what he's asking. For example this week on a potential running into the kicker call, Coach - "was that roughing? did he take 2 steps?"
Me- "Why do you ask about the 2 steps?" Coach - "if he has 2 steps and hits him, isn't that a foul?" Me - Coach, it's a judgement call, whether he took 2 steps or not. I observed the play and in my judgement, a foul was not warranted." Now, he can either argue about my judgement (short discusssion) or find something else to do.

5. Also, establish communication early. I introduce myself and tell him that I will do everything I can to communicate what's going on on the field. However, there may be times that it takes me a play or two to get all the information back to his sideline, but I'll do my best. Now, I've set his expectation on what info he'll get and when he'll get it. Very Important. Then, early in the game, I find ways to proactively establish communication with him.

In my early years, I chose to not engage with or to avoid the coach. I find that establishing repore with him early in the game, it pays off for us both.

Not for nothing, but hurdling is only illegal if he hurdles a player touching the ground with just his feet. Apparently, your guy was prone. Nice play.

In my opinion, hurdling a guy standing up is a more impressive play, but still illegal.

Also, if this is the typical first year of varsity quality team, this guy is / has / will continue to get his brains beat in every week. He may be a tad grouchy for the rest of the season.

use your feet
 

Just to add to JMN's fine advice, I like to walk away once the coach starts jawing at me after I gave him what I consider a full explanation. I'll slowly stride towards the hashmark and allow him to get to the point where he's noticabley on the field then I give him "Coach you need to be off the field" If he doesn't give way - flag. They usually move back, though

I have what might be the worse coach in these parts (for BobM it's our friend at WH)Friday night. Last year I killed him with kindness - not a sarcastic remark from him all night. He's coming off an embarassing loss so he's going to be in rare form. I can't wait! These are the type of games which keep us on our toes..love it.

Also Bob, I'll see you Saturday, I'm filling in for Dennis. What position will I be?

Dennis told me....
 

I'm not sure. I've been working in the back pretty regularly. You might be the LJ. I replaced Dennis at the referee's spot last Friday night when he pulled up lame. It's been a long, long time since I wore the white hat. I was telling the guys that the last time I refereed a varsity game, it was at Westfield and Dave Brown was the QB. Based on my recollections of that game, I don't know how he made it to the NFL!

Giant fans are wondering about that one as well.

Just to answer to how a coach is most comfortable...

First let me start off by saying that in a football game I don't "complain" about a lot. It is different from baseball where most things SHOULD be called because htere is less action. I tell the kids that for every one that they call that you didn't deserve they probably missed one you did. Obviously there is times where a guy is dragged down by his facemask or clipped on a returnd where I can get loud but those are the ones that are 98% of the time called.

In this situation I probably wouldn't have questioned the hurdle instead would have been all over the guy who missed the tackle! Judging by the rest of your post it sounds like a pretty typical official's behavior which I have become accustomed to (ex. I'll watch for the coach). What I do not like in an official is when they start explaining rules when I ask them about a no-call...chances are I know the rules! And having someone that I'm not real happy with reitterate them for me is just gonna drive me nuts. Instead of reciting rules I always would rather discuss the play. Tell me why you didn't make the call..."Coach it looked like his hands were inside the frame" instead of "Coach as long as his hands stay inside the frame it isn't holding" Some of my favorite officials will more then anything just ignore me. They say "sorry coach I didn't see it that way I'll look though" Then get on with the game and let mad coach calm down.

Hope that helps some.

It is possible that you know the rules, but often times this is the furthest thing from the truth. Most of the time I have a coach quoting NFL or NCAA rules, not realizing they do not apply at all at the NF level. That might be a reason an official is explaining the rule.

I had a coach want a holding call from me last night, and yes if I used the strict wording of the rules, I would have made that call. But I had a kid double teamed (a philosophy at the higher levels), if they did hold him he was not going anywhere to begin with (they did not take him down either). But if we call everything by the strict wording, we might not have a game under 5 hours. That would not be fun or you or us. And half the time you would not see what we saw. Especially with the fact you are on the sidelines and we are in the best position to make the call.


Well that might work with you, but you are not all the coaches. Because some coaches just get more and more upset if you ignore them (at least the wing officials). Some coaches will debate more about a call that is judgment all the way (which what a holding call is). And some will agree or overreact to something that goes against them. I have even had coaches go crazy and the call was in their favor. Sometimes nothing we do pleases you guys.

Peace

Haha JR...well if you got coaches complaining when it is in thier favor then you might as well just forget it...lol...you are toast!

More of what I mean by "ignore me" if just acknow;edge the fact that you heard me and you didn't see it that way and then ignore the rest of the argument and let the coach know you've got to keep the game moving and you'd be happy to explain at a break. About 80% of the time he will be cooled off by then and realize it was just a small thing in a bigger picture. I guess I'd just think a lot of arguments could be avoided by the official just giving the coach a couple minutes...but then again I've seen some pretty persistent guys...and 90% of the time my team will kick thier arse because they are too worried about a call 5 minutes ago to play...

I do not know why I would be toast, because coaches are like trains, one comes around every 15 minutes. Chances are I will be around longer than most coaches at a particular school. ;)

I can tell you are rather infamous coach in my area that would not apply to at all.

But seriously, that might work for you, but not all coaches. That is the only point I am making. Because in my experience and many other officials I know, there are coaches that will complain no matter what is going on. You can give them all the explainations and they still complain. You can give them a complete explaination of what you called, and they still complain. And usually, coaches try to debate with officials based on what "they think" the rules are. I had a coach last year that tried to tell me what intentional grounding was. He called a timeout to have a conference with me and all he did was debate what the rule was.

The story that Mike told was very typical of many coaches I have delt with and what other officials have dealt with. And from what it sounds like, if you are telling us the complete truth about your complaining, you have most things in persective. But some of your brethren seem to not get it at all. They think coaching is about yelling and screaming at officials all day. They do not realize that the Bo Schembeckler(sp?), Bobby Knight, Bill Parcells or a John Gruden all have a method to the madness when they complain to officials. Especially at the HS level.

Peace

Mike, you have some good advice here, not to mention I thought you handled it well. I am a LJ and I often have had to deal with like situations over the years. I try to be diplomatic, I try to explain what the rule is if he doesn't understand it, I try to identify with his frustration of over the poor playing of his team and/or coaching tactics. But enough is enough, if he keeps going on about it I will say that is enough on this topic, it is not going to change let's move on, if he continues to harp on it, I tell my R I going to flag him and do so! I may put up with more than I have to, but I try to keep the peace, but it sounds like this guy is a clown and should join the circus. If he is behind by that many pts. and is complaining about hurdling, he has got his prorities a little out of wack. I bet you are looking forward to going back to that cushy job in the middle!! HAHAHA!!

By the way....
 

In the play described, the best way calm the coach down is to tell him that is wasn't a foul for hurdling since the player was prone on the ground. To be a foul, the opponent must not be in contact with the ground with nothing else other than his feet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!