Coaches Education
Notice that I said "coaches" education, not "coaching". While I would agree that the coaching education that USATF runs is indeed a good and necessary program for young, inexperienced coaches, I also think that they need some education in the rules.
Far too often, we have coaches who "think" that they know the rules, and try to bully or intimidate the official into believing them. It has happened before, but this past weekend when I was refereeing a meet, an athlete that was in the high jump and the javelin at the same time had a problem.
When I instructed the head event judge to pass the athlete on his first throw because time had expired (all other preliminary throws had been completed, and he was the only one left), the throws coach said that "technically" (don't you love that term when they use it!) the preliminaries hadn't ended yet, so his athlete was entitled to all three of this trials. Needless to say, he was wrong, and after showing him the rule, he slinked away.
What compounded my frustration was that he told the head coach a different story, so when the head coach approached me, I had to basically call his assistant a liar. I didn't like doing it, but it was the truth.
My point is that if coaches are going to argue rules, then they should know what the rule says. If they want to go toe-to-toe with an official, then they better be on solid ground when it comes to protesting. It would be even better if they actually knew the rules, so that they wouldn't make frivolous protests, and waste the time of the referee in hearing something that has no basis.
Do you try and educate the coaches that you run into? Do they actually know the rule that they are trying to argue? Should we be trying to educate them, or is it a hopeless proposition? What do you do, or not do, and why?
Far too often, we have coaches who "think" that they know the rules, and try to bully or intimidate the official into believing them. It has happened before, but this past weekend when I was refereeing a meet, an athlete that was in the high jump and the javelin at the same time had a problem.
When I instructed the head event judge to pass the athlete on his first throw because time had expired (all other preliminary throws had been completed, and he was the only one left), the throws coach said that "technically" (don't you love that term when they use it!) the preliminaries hadn't ended yet, so his athlete was entitled to all three of this trials. Needless to say, he was wrong, and after showing him the rule, he slinked away.
What compounded my frustration was that he told the head coach a different story, so when the head coach approached me, I had to basically call his assistant a liar. I didn't like doing it, but it was the truth.
My point is that if coaches are going to argue rules, then they should know what the rule says. If they want to go toe-to-toe with an official, then they better be on solid ground when it comes to protesting. It would be even better if they actually knew the rules, so that they wouldn't make frivolous protests, and waste the time of the referee in hearing something that has no basis.
Do you try and educate the coaches that you run into? Do they actually know the rule that they are trying to argue? Should we be trying to educate them, or is it a hopeless proposition? What do you do, or not do, and why?
Labels: coaches, rules, rules intrepretation
posted by Hammer at
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
1 Comments:
As the meet referee, the meet director and I hold a brief discussion of rules during the coaches' meeting prior to the start of the meet. The discussion centers on recent rules violations we have observed. We ask for "questions" and as the other coaches listen in, we explain the rules. It helps somewhat, but the problem remains that our sport has coaches that are assistants in other sports, ie football, basketball, and their knowledge of track and field rules is limited.
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