MikeThomasSmith.com

Hey Everyone,

I’ve got a problem.

I coached my 2nd basketball game last night and I wasn’t happy with the results.   I don’t feel like the ref was real fair with my kids.

Now understand it’s a church rec league for 6 year old boys so it’s not real intense.   The ref is real lenient on calls such as double dribbling and traveling and that’s understandable.    But last week we were beating the other team by 8 points midway through the fourth and he started calling everything on us until the game was taken away from us.

Now last night: Same ref.   One of the league rules is the kids must play defense with a foot in the paint.   My team complied but the other team consistently went as far as 3 steps out of the paint and play defense on us.  Nothing was called.   If my team took one step out he would blow the whistle.  He even acted as if he was getting tired of correcting my kids.

Me and my assisitant coach have talked to him and he gets real short with us.   I’ve thought about going to the director and asking him about it, but I don’t want to alienate my team any more than it obviously is.

Now I want to clear one thing up before hand.   I’m not a sore loser.  I don’t really care about winning and losing at this level.  I just want these kids to learn the game and have a lot of fun.   It got to the point where my team just gave up because it seemed they felt they couldn’t do anything right last night.  It killed their spirits.
Any suggestions on how I should handle this?

Mike