Well, after struggling through these past few weeks with personal dramas, I am finally sitting down to write. I never thought the day would come again. I don’t really know where to begin, so I’ll just share chronologically where events have occurred of significance.
In an inner-city league game near downtown Portland, I worked a double header of girl’s freshman, followed by girl’s JV (Junior Varsity). In the initial game, the crowd was just getting warmed up to me and by the time the second game came around, they just adored me.
I was the R (referee) for both games, and the U (umpire, my partner) was a fellow I had worked with before at a local high school last year. Before the game even started, the home coach approached my partner and talked with him at length. I noticed this immediately while appearing to be busy looking another direction, I purposely did this so the coach would think she was pulling the wool over my eyes.
It was time for us to take up our pre-game positions, opposite the scorer’s table, to observe the players legally warm up. I immediately asked my partner what the coach had said to him.
“She asked me to please call a fair game because you don’t like her from a previous experience,” he explained.
I began to laugh, “Are you kidding me? I had that lady at a Christmas tournament where she spanked the other team and was still complaining. It didn’t bother me and afterwards I wished her a happy holiday and new year and went on my way, going out of my way to be friendly with both coaches in the holiday spirit. I can’t believe she'd even think that way about me.”
My partner just shrugged. I knew we were in for a game that was headed for trouble.
Sure enough, from the opening tip, which we had to re-toss due to two players simultaneously grabbing the ball, she was on me. It’s the same old spiel from coaches, “You gotta call this, you gotta call that!” The excited ones never ask questions, they never show any respect, they just yell at you and tell you how you should call the game exactly as they see it, through their distorted and convoluted eyes.
I just ignored her, it was my best bet I felt, but she just kept things up. My partner was not helping things, he was not calling the game as tightly as I was and so I was touted as the scapegoat. I explained a couple of calls to the home coach, but they did not help anything, she just told me again what to do and I warned her to stop. The crowd started in on me, and I feel this only happened because of the attitude of the coach, being as vocal as she was. My next step, I had no choice.
“That was a horrible call!” yelled the coach, directly at me.
She was not more than five feet behind me, so I promptly turned around, signaled the technical foul and told her, “Sit down coach.”
She apparently did not know the “seatbelt rule,” on the first technical foul the coach must remain seated throughout the rest of the contest. I find it hard to believe that a coach does not know these rules apply directly to them and no one else; it seems like a convenient memory loss at a crucial time.
The crowd began to get worse, and I had to ask the athletic director at halftime to instruct them they would be removed if their comments were not more appropriate in the second half. It was a bloody mess. I did not enjoy my job that day, and it all began because a coach did not have the capacity to talk to me before the game. She not only made herself, in my eyes and the eyes of many officials, look foolish by her lack of communication. She also proved that she is not ready to move up to a varsity level coach. I believe that good coaches are masters of communication; if they have a problem with you, they will talk to you about it and get it out into the open air. Going behind someone’s back never solved anything and never will. I hope to have this coach again in the future so I can talk with her before the game, if she will not air it out, I will have to coach the coach and do some preventative officiating. At least this has been a large learning lesson for me with regard to communication with coaches.
