Mouths of Coaches...Part II

[James]

Heck of a lot better than mine on the weekend.

Youth league 9 man with some modified rules. Kicks have no returns, if caught in the air the return team gets 10 yards advantage, if off the ground, they get it where they pick it up (or first touch it if that spot is worse)
The best vs the worst in the area, and shortly before halftime they are up 33-0.
We have 'Mercy Rule' for the clock above 28 points difference in this league. The clock then only stops for injuries and team time outs.
With about 20 sec left we have a punt from the losing team, and then half time is called. The winning coach starts flipping out that the clock should have stopped and his team gets the ball again.

His argument - 'The clock stops when a runner goes OOB - even in 'Mercy Rules' '. Which is untrue, AND - it was a kick caught in the air and declared dead (sort of like a fair catch), so even if it was how we ran the clock it wouldn't apply in the situation.
Then came 'It's not about running up the score.', but I have a hard time figuring out why he would NEED the ball again with under 20 seconds.
Left a bad taste in my mouth.

[AlUpstateNY]

To quote Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does (or in this case, says)"

[110]

Great role model for 10 year olds.  I hope the league takes some further action.

In a pre-atom (8-9 -year olds) league I once officiated, the league allowed the coaches to be on the field. After the end of one really botched play, this one hot-head coach starts droping f-bombs AT HIS OWN KIDS loud enough for everyone to hear. I turfed the coach toute suite.

"What did I do?"

"Coach, you're swearing at 9-year-olds, and loud enough the fans can hear."

"I can F-ing yell at my own f-ing team!"

"Not anymore, coach."

[110]

We've had White Hats and Umpires openly discuss who will throw the holding flag to stop that last long pass with seconds to go and a 50-0 score on the board.

This has to be the most offensive thing I've seen from an official, in any sport, in my career.

I think you - and your peers - need to re-evalute your duties.

[jjseikel]

This has to be the most offensive thing I've seen from an official, in any sport, in my career.

I think you - and your peers - need to re-evalute your duties.

For sure!! Why would you call holding? At least call something that includes the loss of down provision!!   

[Steve Brown]

For sure!! Why would you call holding? At least call something that includes the loss of down provision!!   

Jaybird!!!!

Be reverent!!!!

[LarryW60]

Doing things like that (the phantom holding calls on a team during a blowout) take us out of the realm of ensuring safety and fairness and move us into the realm of punishing boorish behavior.  It's not our job to punish people for being merciless - even in Connecticut where I hear there is a rule that fines the coach for running up the score.  Their fine is assessed by the state, not the officials on the field.

Stick with the tasks you ARE given and stop trying to change a coaches' moral compass.  It wouldn't work anyway as their compass is permanently askew. 

[AlUpstateNY]

Sometimes the integrity of the game requires "upholding", of course what you do involves your judgment of what constitutes integrity of the game which may not be the same for everybody.

[LarryW60]

The main problem I have with phantom calls is that you're calling a foul on an innocent person.  Explain to me how a phantom call - because of what the coach wants - is teaching the player who got flagged sportsmanship?  All it is teaching them is that it doesn't matter how "clean" they play the game, they're going to get flagged anyway.  So why should they bother "keeping it clean"?

[GoodScout]

NO PHANTOM CALLS! EVEAHHH!

[110]

NO PHANTOM CALLS! EVEAHHH!

Or, alternately, there's a wight way and a wrong way?

:drums

I'll be here all season folks.

[allen]

High School varsity game Friday night.

A coach asked our R for a measurement of his bean bag after the R bagged the QB's spot for a pass a few yards past the line of scrimmage....

[LarryW60]

OK, THAT one is a definite "LOLWUT?" moment. 

[RMR]

Great "Mouths of Coaches" moment this past friday.  Rivalry game and they REALLY don't like each other.

A36 is hit at the sideline and winds up out of bounds at about B's 20 along with B22.  As A36 is attemting to get up off the ground, B22 pushes him back to the ground.  I flag him for a PF.

B's head coach is way at the other end of the team box, so I give the info to the H so that he can relay the info to B's head coach when he gets a chance.

A B assistant standing right there gets visibly upset when he hears that the foul was on B22 and starts yelling at the both of us that "We don't even have a #22, how in the hell can you call that (and I have no doubt that the coach saw the entire thing, as it happened about 6 yards from where he was standing) We don't have a 22."

So then I pointed out B22 (who was standing at about the numbers) to the coach, and said "22 is right there coach."

He just hung his head in defeat.  It was a beautiful moment.

[LarryW60]

I've gotten to the point where anything out of an assistant's mouth is ignored unless it falls under USC rules.  We had a punt last Friday where R muffed it and it went into R's end zone.  After we signal touchback, an assistant for K starts yelling at me that "He touched it before it went in!!!"  The head coach turned to the assistant and said, "Chill out.  They got it right."  I had to smile a little (while looking away, of course) and my estimation of the HC went up a little for that exchange.

[Mike L]

Not really from the mouth of a coach, but it was pretty darn funny.
There's a commotion on the visitor's sideline just after I've hacked it in & I'm trying to figure out what the heck their problem is because both teams are in huddles and the last play was really nothing special. Then I see one of the assitants (whose primary job all night appeared to be hanging on to their game ball even when we needed it on the field) wind up and spike the ball after which he immediately drops to the ground like he's been shot. Yep, you guessed it, that ball came right back up and hit him where no guy wants to get hit . Since he's laying right on the sideline I have to call my first ever officials time out for an injured coach while trying not to crack up . Which became even more difficult when he eventually got up to his hands and knees to crawl over to the bench.

[jjseikel]

Not really from the mouth of a coach, but it was pretty darn funny.
There's a commotion on the visitor's sideline just after I've hacked it in & I'm trying to figure out what the heck their problem is because both teams are in huddles and the last play was really nothing special. Then I see one of the assitants (whose primary job all night appeared to be hanging on to their game ball even when we needed it on the field) wind up and spike the ball after which he immediately drops to the ground like he's been shot. Yep, you guessed it, that ball came right back up and hit him where no guy wants to get hit . Since he's laying right on the sideline I have to call my first ever officials time out for an injured coach while trying not to crack up . Which became even more difficult when he eventually got up to his hands and knees to crawl over to the bench.

Did you hit him with a USC for spiking the ball? 

[JDM]

During a pregame conference with a coach, he described a substitution play that I felt was illegal.

"Coach, that play can be deemed deceptive and is illegal."

He replied "Hell Duffy, the option's deceptive!"

[Christian]

I had a game the other week in the british league where we had a bit of a scuffle after the play was dead and two players started shoving each other.
Flags came in and the penalties were assessed. (Live ball Holding on offense, which resulted in the player being held going on to retaliate after the play was over, and another player coming into the fray getting involved after that.)

After all the penalties had been sorted out and we were getting back to our positions for the next play, the coach on my sideline came up to me and claimed that the player from the opposing team had punched his player with a closed fist and should be ejected.
I calmly replied to him that none of the officials had seen a closed fist punch, only a bit of shoving, and that he had been flagged for it.
The coach then replied with the immortal line:

"How could you not see that he used a closed fist to punch my guy? I saw it from where I was standing, and there were three players in the way."

I decided not to reply with the obvious retort of "If there were three guys in the way, did you use your x-ray vision to see the punch?"

[LarryW60]

X-Ray vision and Telescopic vision are apparently two of the requirements to be a head coach. 

[elewis023]

The main problem I have with phantom calls is that you're calling a foul on an innocent person.  Explain to me how a phantom call - because of what the coach wants - is teaching the player who got flagged sportsmanship?  All it is teaching them is that it doesn't matter how "clean" they play the game, they're going to get flagged anyway.  So why should they bother "keeping it clean"?

Agree.  Anytime this happens in a game I am in, I signal to the other guys that the next play had better be perfect.   No phantom calls, but anything that is boarderline WILL be called.  The last time it happened, the play was run to perfection and there was no way we could justify a flag.  Touchdown for A and they win 42-0. 

I've heard guys say they have thrown a phantom flag and it didn't sit well with me.  Just didn't seem right.

You can tighten it up or loosen it up, but don't make something up.

Also, remember, that just about every game is filmed, so think about having to explain your call that isn't there.  Don't cheat the kid who throws a perfect block.

Stay healthy.  The season starts in about 3 months!!!

[LarryW60]

Aaaaannd another season starts!  I heard "They broke the huddle with 12!" last night at a scrimmage.  When informed that there was no such foul in high school ball, the assistant coach tried a different tack... "They only had 10 on the field then!  That's an illegal formation!"  

I refrained from asking how it felt to have 20+ yards gained on you if they were 1-man down.

[lawdog]

Friday night, first high school game of the year and we call an illegal formation for O having only 6 on the line.  The opposite wing from me has the team on defense at the time and their coach says to him, "hey ref, does that needing 6 guys on the line rule go both ways?".  My wing says, "coach its seven on the line and it only applies to the offense so you are fine for now."  This was not his first year either...  Where do they get these guys???

[InsideTheStripes]

I got a "Hey! Hey! They can't sub after they break the (defensive) huddle!" this week.

* rolls eyes *

[bhosken]

When officiating youth games, I generally during the pregame conference with the coach like to make sure that his captains choose wisely at the coin toss.  One coach in particular generally has little time for me during the conference and tries to ignore our discussion.  I asked the coach what choice he wanted his captains to make. He turned away from me as if I was a leper. I asked again thinking maybe I just didn't hear his response. He turned towards me in disgust and said gruffly, "They know!" I asked again if he could share their choice with me and with fire in his eyes stated, "Heads! We want heads!" Ironically, his captains did select heads and won the toss and elected to kick so they could have the ball in the second half.  Too bad they kicked off twice that game.