Game Log 1/28/2010: Coach management

Some ticklish situations tonight in my JV/Varsity girls' games. We had a winless team against a middle of the pack team. I was the R with two surprisingly inexperienced partners...this isn't a complaint, since both worked hard, but I had to do a LOT of traffic cop on 3-man mechanics. But still, it's always a surprise when I'm the Big Dude In Charge.

JV game was especially challenging, since the winless school had only 6 players on the squad. Those girls were also doing enough fouling that we could have made them go the second half with 4 or even 3 girls, but we held our whistles on the the borderline stuff, and perhaps a couple of things just on the other side of the border too. Winning coach was a little annoyed, but this was a least-of-several-evils situation.

Anyway, with about a minute and a half left, winless fouled out its second player and was then stuck with four. Winning coach told my partner she'd willingly pull a kid and play 4-on-4. Partner agreed. While that is certainly a sweet sentiment by coach and partner, I had to tell partner that this was against the rule--winning team had to play with 5 or get an illegal substitution technical (and then be required to put a fifth kid on the floor after the shots). Partner went in and reversed his decision. Nice move.

Much to everyone's surprise, the Varsity game was tied after a quarter, but Winless couldn't keep it together after that and wound up losing by several dozen. We called the game properly, I think--didn't ever ease up (they pretty much didn't let us). I'm proud of my coach management from tonight. Winless coach is a good guy, polite throughout. Reasonable people are easier to deal with, but I'm still proud of how I handled some situations with him.

Case 1:

COACH: You've got to call them for keeping an arm on our dribblers! You're letting them get away with stuff you're calling on us!

ME: Coach, I disagree, but I'll look.

-Immediate silence. (For what it's worth, Winning team played pretty good straight-up defense, partners and I agreed.)

COACH: Sir, could you explain that last call before halftime? (This was early in the third.)
ME: Coach, without going into too much detail, let me tell you we talked that one over at halftime.
COACH; All right.

Oh, and one funny one, after winless absolutely creamed a shooter:

COACH: I'm not going to complain about that one.
ME: [cracks up at table]. Thank you.
COACH: Yeah, she creamed her. Nobody could complain about that one.
ME: But people do.
COACH: Well, I won't.

Nice moment overall.

The game was as good as we could make it--on the whole, it came together just fine, especially for a pair of inexperienced partners on a varsity/JV doubleheader. I won't pretend it was perfect, but I was a leader, managing personalities of coaches and partners under some tough circumstances. I'm proud of the work we did tonight.

THINGS I DID WELL: Coach management, partner management
THINGS TO WORK ON: May have let the losers of the JV game get away with just a shade too much.
NEXT: Junior high boys doubleheader tomorrow (Friday).