Why Coaches May Have Difficulty Understanding Some Rulings

After working my first game or two this year, I was quickly reminded that coaches often try to help us officiate. If they only knew that their help is distracting and might make some of us miss the next call, they might choose to focus more on their coaching. That is a topic for another day.

The travel, over-and-back, and fouls against one team’s players tend to be a coach’s biggest gripe. With this in mind, I thought I would start a discussion strand looking for your comments add to this beginning list of rulings. Maybe someday we can even publish a handout to explain to coaches why we may disagree on the different rule situations. My conclusion is that officials and coaches each focus on different things when performing their work. If we make different observations, then we will obviously draw different conclusions. My years as a science teacher have taught me that much.

Traveling and legal/illegal contact rulings are ultimately based upon our assessment of the situation the moment a player takes possession of the ball. I believe that coaches and officials will regularly differ on when a player truly takes possession. Judgement is involved and judgement unfortunately tends to be a bit more gray than the black and white of our published rules. Does a player have possession when the ball first touches a players hands or shortly thereafter when she/he demonstrates that they have full control of the ball (usually as the ball is moved closer to the body)? This moment when player possession begins establishes the pivot foot, backcourt/frontcourt status and legal guarding position. Despite working for the best position, officials may not have the perfect view to see exactly when player possession begins. Coaches restricted to their coaching box obviously have less than a perfect viewing perspective most of the time, however, sometimes they have a better angle, but have they mastered the rules surrouding these situations?

Most of our officiating time is spent looking at offensive players’ feet and the position and actions of defensive players. These two things are critical when ruling traveling violations and fouls. Establishing and using a pivot foot and whether a defensive player does anything contrary to the rules is the information that we must gather and process before making a ruling. Rule knowledge is paramount to making the proper ruling.

In conclusion, I think that coaches and officials seem to have different decisons because we are watching different things. I am sure that coaches are not watching pivot feet as closely as officials and rarely focus on individual players’ defensive position. To do their job well, coaches generally have to watch the ball when their team is in possession and watch the opponent’s offense and their own entire defense when they do not have possession so they can make the necessary overall adjustments required of coaches.

Now that we understand that coaches and officials are watching different things most of the time, it is fully understandable that there will be disagreements. How coaches and officials deal with these disagreements is also very important. IAABO trains us well, but when we insert personalities the waters become more muddy. I would encourage all officials and coaches to review their respective codes of conduct in the rulebook. This information and the rules governing behavior of coaches and bench personnel might help each of us to better repond to coaches and how they choose to disagree.

Remember, your local interpreter is the best person to guide you on individual decisions on the court and proper rules interpretations. Please use this valuable association resource!

Upcoming Topic: Pre-Game Discussions—> What things do you think we need to stress more at our pre-game discussion with scorers and timers? Do you sometimes feel that we tell table officials way too much or way to little only to discover after the game starts that your discussion was not very effective?

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