I would like to know how everyone here feels about situations where a referee's spouse, son or daughter were coaching one of the teams they are officiating. Has anyone experienced a situation like that and how was it handled?

In all the years I coached I don't remember a situation like that... I'm not so sure thats a good idea... regardless of how they call the game... that ref will be looked at as a homer. A NO WIN situation... I would think that the assignment people would stay away from that situation. Did this happen to you and were there any problems?

As a coach, there were many times I thought I was on the wrong side of calls... of course I would always think that way haha

Bball is a fast game to officiate... things happen quickly, the fan and the coaches might have a different angle than the refs do, result... they call it the way they see it and it might not be the way we see it.

One year our assignment chairman asked me, my assistant and another coach to go to a referees meeting for a question and answer session. We had a lot of good give and take.... when they asked me for my #1 concern or wish... it was very simple... "Try to be as consistent as you possibly can - If you do that, I for one can live with however you call the game."

At the high school level, this would be an issue.

At the youth level, I'm not sure if I've had that happen to me or not. I do see the parent's of players on a team referee their child's game quite often. Either way, it's not an ideal situation, but you will really can't worry about it at the youth level. On average, youth referees aren't the best so I don't get caught up in the calls. I just focus on how my teams is playing.

If I think a call is way off, I will chat with the official about it, but that's about it. When you start worrying about officiating, that's when negative coaching starts to happen and you become worried about every call and your focus becomes the officials or what the other team is doing rather than what you should be doing. Trust me, you don't want to go there. I've done that a few times. Then the players start to react to you complaining. They start to complain, their attitude goes down the drain, and they start to bicker among each other.

Or how about when you play the tournament director's team? I actually had one of those games yesterday. Besides having a few late game no-calls go against us, we also had two buzzer beaters against us. A running 25-foot 3 as time expired to send it to overtime and a put-back in overtime as time expired to beat us. Ha! Naturally, the kids and parents wanted to focus on the missed calls, but I said, "Hey. If we don't miss 10 bunnies, we fare better."

Hi Coach. Yep, this happened to me and I was surprised to see that the father of the coach for the other team officiating the game. He actually referees for high school and college level, but also for youth basketball. My players don't normally complain about the calls, but they were increasingly frustrated with the calls going in favor of the other. My wife films our games and when I looked at the video, I shook my head in disbelief with how inconsistent the officiated was. Our team led the whole game until about the last 6 minutes and we ended up losing by 5 points. That said, I take the loss as fair and square, however, there will be a rematch in a few weeks and I don't think the father of the other team's coach should be officiated the game at all.

Thanks, Joe. I agree that I don't want to lose focus or instigate any negativity among my players. I even sent them an email after the game, emphasizing to them that we must respect the officiating.

I agree.... he should step back if he is assigned to the next game... as a ref for high school and college games... he should know better.... I don't even know why he would put himself in that position... ( giving him the benefit of the doubt ) he sure wouldn't want the word getting out that he was a homer. JMO

I've been in both situations. I have been coaching teams with officials related to the other team, and I have been officiating with the father of a boy on one team. I like to think that everyone did the best they could and it has never been a big problem. But I also know that finding people to do these games, especially youth games, is hard. I am the girls basketball coach so I get roped into them, but other people are there to watch their kids and get "drafted" into duty. I would never care unless I noticed a REAL, BIG, GLARING, problem. Then I might say something. But finding unbiased people to do these things is hard if you are not paying them. And, although I have seen my partner give his kid a break, I have also seen him make some calls to teach his kid a lesson. So it might go both ways.

All of the referees for this league are paid.