've been coaching an 8th grade basketball team this year for my old high school. Basically it's the feeder system where the kids that will be going to the school play together and start learning our systems, plays, style, etc.
Our last tournament was on Saturday at a local HS. We have 16 kids on the team so we split the teams up and 8 play on each team. The way the scheduling and pool play fell our teams one team played at 2:35 on Saturday and the other played at 3:35. All weekend the officiating had been pretty decent but we had new officials for the 2:35 game during which I was the "assistant coach" for the team, and I would "head coach" the 3:35 game.
These new officials were gigantic douchebags.
They seemed like they could give two shits and really acted as though they didn't want to be there. They were actually laughing at the kids on the floor when they would miss layups or jumpshots or lose the ball out of bounds. We had our player go up for a layup, get hit across the face to the point where his nose was bleeding and the official laughed when we complained about there be no call on the play and said "These kids have been missing layups all day. They aren't going to get any calls."
Awesome. Way to go. This pissed me off to no end as as players and coaches we are told to not show up the officials, and that respect should go the other way. The officials should not be showing up the coaches or the players.
My game rolls around and it's on the same court so we have the same refs. About two minutes to go in the first half I have a player drive the lane, jump stop, pump fake, the opposing player goes in the air my player gets the shot off and the other player lands on top of my player when he comes down. Both kids go to the floor. No call. Nothing. Wow. One of my other kids on the floor complains(Where's the call?!), a player from the other team says "That's a technical", and the official T's up BOTH of them. I go to half court near the scorers table and while the players are getting up and peopel are sorting things out I ask to talk to the ref. I tell him I will talk to my team and tell them to shut up and not talk to him but I do have a concern about the last no call. Basically saying the other teams player landed on my kid, that's obviously a lot of contact, and if he keeps letting that stuff go it becomes more of a player safety issue than anything. He say's "Oh yeah? Come talk to me at half time." Ok.
Half time rolls around and I tell the assistant coach to talk to my team and I go over to talk to the officials who take their half time about 10 feet away from each teams bench. I go over sit down and say "Alright, let's talk" He didn't look up and started flipping through the rule book. He hands me the rule book and says:
Ref1: What's it say at the bottom of that page?
FT: It's the incidental contact rule. I'm familier with it.
R1: That't the call.
FT: That doesn't make much sense. 99% of fouls in basketball are techinically "incedental". I go for a block and hit a players arm, it's still a foul, although not intentional. I go for a steal, get his arm. Incidental techinically. A player jumping up and landing on another player is incidental as well...and still a foul. Incidental no calls are players legs getting tied up going for a loose ball, and things of that nature. It doesn't apply to what happened out there.
R1: Well the other player jumped over your player. There was no contact.
FT: Well was there no contact or was there incidental contact? Because you just showed me the incidental contact rule and said that was the call.
R1: Look, I gave you my explanation and you don't like it.
FT: No. You gave me two different explanations, neither of which made sense or happened. I don't understand the attitude right now. You asked me to come over here. I did and am being civil about this and trying to talk about what happened. Look, this is a 3rd place game and we are down by 10. I'm not trying to treat this like the NBA Finals. First and foremost it becomes a player safety issue. If we keep letting stuff like that go a player will end up needlessly getting hurt. I....
(Ref2 jumps in)
R2: Don't give us that shit. Come on. Don't come at us with that.
FT: I'm not patronizing you with it. Like I said, this is a 3rd place game in the last tournament of the year. I'm dead serious about it when it comes to the safety of the players out here. We can't let stuff like tha go. I understand smaller stuff will be missed but that wasn't small.
R2: Basketball is a physical game. If you don't want your players to get hurt have them go take piano lessons.
FT: I understand it's a physical game. I played it for 15 years. I also never said it was only about my players. It's about every player out there. There is a difference between the natural physicality of the game and unneccessary plays being allowed to take place and build up that can get kids hurt if things snow ball and get out of control.
R2: That's it. That's enough. We are done.
I've played basketball long enough to realize when an official says that, that you should just walk away. So I handed him the book back and walked towards my bench. I figured what the hell, and stopped about half way between the refs and my bench. Within ear shot of my bench.
FT: Hey guys, (officials look at me). If you goes don't want to be here or don't care about the game you can always just go the hell home.
R2: That's it. That's a technical!
FT:
We lost the game by 15 but whatever. We weren't going to get any calls anyways. The other coach came up to me after the game and said he heard what I said and agreed 100% with it. I never got a technical as a player so this was my first one ever.
but I don't yell like he does but I shout a few things to get them in the right spots here and there and they didn't mind a bit
I don't have a mentor like that. I just treat each person as their own individual. I moved one kid go from being the team's center, to the starting PG, after 2 years of mis-coaching. The parents never let me live that down, but I proved them wrong, big time. If you coach, just make sure you don't stereotype anyone into some unwritten tradition. That will put a ceiling onto you, and your kids. 
