Basketball Ref Oopsie

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Ted
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 5:38 pm
Location: South Dakota

Basketball Ref Oopsie

Post by Ted »

During a basketball game the assistant coaches were chirping at the officials. Constantly disagreeing with calls and vocalizing displeasure with no-calls. Nothing rising to the level of a technical foul, but something that needed to be addressed by the officials because only head coaches are supposed to address officials.

One of the officials blows the whistle and stops the game then goes to the table to record a bench warning.

"Bench warning. Black. Coach. 2:18. 2nd quarter."

He then notifies the head coach of the bench warning and the reason behind the warning. Play resumes. The team in the black uniforms goes on to defeat the team in the white uniforms by about 30 points.

The problem with this wasn't made known until a couple of days later when one of the previously warned assistant coaches, an African-American, approached a different ref, a regional leader in the officiating community, before another game to report the inappropriate behavior of including the race of a coach when reporting the bench warning.

All parties discussed the incident and agreed that it was an unintended action by the reporting ref. The air was cleared and the regional leader shared the lesson learned with other officials.

The preferred reporting for similar situations in the future will be something like......

"Bench warning. Visiting team. Coach. Time. Quarter."

Lesson learned.
Bludogdem
Posts: 2054
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:16 pm

Re: Basketball Ref Oopsie

Post by Bludogdem »

Ted wrote: Thu Jan 05, 2023 8:09 am During a basketball game the assistant coaches were chirping at the officials. Constantly disagreeing with calls and vocalizing displeasure with no-calls. Nothing rising to the level of a technical foul, but something that needed to be addressed by the officials because only head coaches are supposed to address officials.

One of the officials blows the whistle and stops the game then goes to the table to record a bench warning.

"Bench warning. Black. Coach. 2:18. 2nd quarter."

He then notifies the head coach of the bench warning and the reason behind the warning. Play resumes. The team in the black uniforms goes on to defeat the team in the white uniforms by about 30 points.

The problem with this wasn't made known until a couple of days later when one of the previously warned assistant coaches, an African-American, approached a different ref, a regional leader in the officiating community, before another game to report the inappropriate behavior of including the race of a coach when reporting the bench warning.

All parties discussed the incident and agreed that it was an unintended action by the reporting ref. The air was cleared and the regional leader shared the lesson learned with other officials.

The preferred reporting for similar situations in the future will be something like......

"Bench warning. Visiting team. Coach. Time. Quarter."

Lesson learned.
Basketball refs always refer to teams by their uniform colors. You’d think an assistant coach would know that.
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