Hypothetical situations always seem to arise in a discussion of collegiate tennis and officiating. Here is a scenario that is discussed regularly in our ranks:
The coach instructs his players to make a close call on the far sideline in the first game or two to see how the chair official is going to respond.
Is that cheating or good coaching???
Personally, I have mixed feelings about the issue. On one hand, it is absolutely cheating if he teaches his players to make a bad call to check out the official. On the other hand, if a close call does occur on the far sideline, then the coach should teach his player to learn from it. What a chair official does on a close call on the far sideline will tell you a lot about how they are going to officiate the match. If a chair official is quick to overrule a far sideline then they will probably be quick to overrule throughout the match. Players and coaches should learn from this.
Remember--being instructed to sin does not negate a person's responsibility for their actions. If they deliberately cheat, then the player AND the coach who told him to cheat, should be penalized.
What do you think??? Send in your opinions and we'll see what everyone has to say.
Remember that a coach should always abide by a healthy code of ethics. Does this violate that code or is it acceptable behavior? Sometimes something that is legally alright is not right ethically. What kind of coach do you want coaching your son or daughter???
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10 comments:
It is 100% cheating! Need to refresh these coaches on benefit of the doubt. Plus that long line call puts a lot of pressure on a chair umpire. They want to play that game, make them bring in extra line officialls and explain to their A.D why their over budget.
100% cheating and coaches who advocate this should never be allow to coach again. I know it happens, but that doesn't make it right or acceptable.
Its way more than hypothetical and everyone knows it. They also know when and where its happening.
If it can be substantiated that a coach is actually doing this then their conference needs to take action to suspend or remove them. There is no place in collegiate tennis for this kind of activity.
It's cheating. Hasn't happened to me yet but it sounds like it will.
Coaches need to let the events of a match play out naturally or organically as they say.
Good luck ever catching a coach telling his player to deliberately cheat. You could ask their trainers though. They hear and see everything.
What????? Is this really a gray area for anyone???? If so, then please leave the officiating profession - you are contributing to the cheating epidemic in our sport.
300 blog views today! There must be some interest out there...
Great article. We all know who does and where its done. Too bad the light can't shine on the one who is doing it.
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