Gotta Love Those Refs

It's not real hard to shut me up. Just threaten to throw me out of the building when my son and his team are playing a basketball game.

For a regular guy like me, the above episode was a shock to the system, since I'm usually just trying to get through the day. On this day, though, I may have been a bit more focused on my new coaching agenda.

You see, I'm the #3 coach for my son Mike's team in our regional fall rec basketball league. So, I'm kind of a third wheel. The head coach organizes and executes the substitution pattern and the assistant delivers the strategies and tactics during huddles and halftimes. But, since I can't help myself (and am told that I am welcome), there I am, just another dad, hanging around the bench, trying to figure out what else I can do, beyond re-filling water bottles and making sure to keep track of our basketballs.

So, for this particular size-challenged team, I have assumed the self-appointed task of reinforcing the importance of boxing out, that simple activity that makes players' lives so much easier if they would just do it.

Having spent our one pre-season practice and the pre-game warm-up personally reminding Mike and his friends that boxing out this night was a key to our success, I had an idea.

You know that joke about the guy who had three ideas -- one's terrible, one's pretty good and the third one is ticking?

Wacky Youth Sports Dad that I am, I acted on my brilliant idea and approached the refs in the moments before the game to pursue that new coaching agenda I mentioned earlier. Figured I'd plant a seed that might get us a couple of calls and possibly neutralize our height disadvantage. Introduced myself to the officials and tried to mask the following as small talk, thinking that I might actually implant a subliminal message and create a tangible, surreptitious advantage for my team:

"Yea, we're kind of a vertically-challenged team," I said to the disinterested duo, as if they really cared. "So we emphasize boxing out. When kids are boxing out, you guys are more inclined to call those over-the-back fouls, right?"

My attempt at delivering this subliminal message might have been more effective if I had been wearing a three-dimensional, boom box-equipped sandwich board.

One guy turned away, smirking and shaking his head. The other asserted loudly, "A foul is a foul and if we see it, we'll call it" in a tone that added this unspoken sentiment, "and we don't need some wise-guy Dad-coach who thinks he knows the rules telling us how to call the game."

Realizing at that moment that my little idea had no Plan B, I took my place at the end of the bench and promptly forgot about the league rule that only one, designated coach is allowed to stand up at any time during play.

In the first minute, Mike raced an opposing player to a loose ball in the corner of the court where I was seated. He got there first but was forced to contend with an aggressive double team that I, of course, interpreted as a foul. My outspoken, stripe-shirted buddy didn't agree and play went on, but I stood up and did the palms-up shoulder-shrug thing, looking directly at him. Our eyes met and he immediately launched into a diatribe during which I was twice threatened with expulsion from the building if I stood up again, citing the league rule about coaches on the sideline.

It was now clear. My idea had officially backfired. The subliminal message I was trying to implant with strategic finesse had exploded in my face.

What to do? Can't risk a T that could impact our chance of winning a game that figured to be close. Can't leave the bench - not going to let him chase me away from my commitment to help. But, wait. I can't even stand up. What about during time outs? Can I refill the water bottles at halftime? That overly-sensitive, self-important ogre. Jeez.

So, I sat down, shut up and laughed at my peculiar ability to outsmart myself in another new way.

I also learned a valuable lesson:

You just can't count on those darn refs to understand the tortured, emotional, high-strung mentality of that calculating, indispensable junior assistant dad coach sitting at the end of the bench.

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