The subject isn't one current basketball coaches will discuss openly.
Former LSU coach Dale Brown had his share of run-ins with officials.
Former coaches are more than willing to talk about it, they just won't admit to having done much of it.
But make no mistake: They've all done it, with varying degrees of success. The taboo topic to which we refer is "working a ref," which Hugh Durham, who coached more than 1,000 games in Division I, quickly rephrases as "establishing a dialogue, because nobody likes to be worked."
Fair enough. Nobody likes to be worked. But also fair to say no coach likes to see every call go against his team. So be it a gentle thought placed in the ear of an official or an out-and-out tirade directed at an official, there will be dialogue.
Here are some suggestions from three SEC coaching legends concerning how one might establish his ground with the men in stripes:
1. Be genuine. "They recognize a false smile and a false greeting," said Sonny Smith, the head coach at Auburn for most of the 1980s. "Be gentle and be yourself."
Dale Brown spent 25 years as the head coach. He was accused of all sorts of misbehavior, but he was never anything other than himself.
"I never tried to be suave or anything," Brown said. "If he made a bad call, I questioned it."
2. Be funny. Smith said Durham was always good at getting off a wisecrack that would make an official smile.
"I remember one time Hugh was so far out of the coach's box he was down by our bench," Smith said. "The ref says, 'Hugh, what are you doing?' And Hugh says, 'I just came down here to visit my good friend Sonny.' I said, 'I've never seen the guy before.' "
3. Know the crew. All three coaches agreed there were certain officials you could approach and certain guys you couldn't.
"An inexperienced official, if you get on him right after he blows a call he's gonna give you a 'T' (technical foul)," Durham said. "A confident, experienced official will let you have your say. Then he'll say, 'OK, that's enough.' And he might say, 'Coach, I missed it.' If you rip the inexperienced guy, he's gonna T you. He hasn't built up the positive reputation of being a good official. So he uses the power of the whistle."
Smith had a different take on the younger zebras.
"I always thought it was good to find the young official," Smith said. "The veterans know every trick and the others have told them if they don't. You work the young official and hope the others come to the rescue."
4. Compliment when you can. "After a guy has done something really good, it's good to say something," Durham said. "You have to before anything actually takes place. You have to say, 'Hey, that's a good call. That's how I saw it.' "
5. Don't curse. "The key is knowing how far you can go," Smith said. "Bad language is as short a way to go as you can go. If you can chew them without cussing them that's a different situation. That is their rule, unwritten rule. Bad language will cost you a T."
Hugh Durham felt Rupp Arena could intimidate officials when he was at Georgia.
6. Understand the situation and the surroundings. For all three of these coaches, getting a call in Lexington's Rupp Arena was like the devil trying to take a charge in heaven. Can you say "block?"
"I coached against four coaches at Kentucky," Brown said. "Talent, the heritage has a lot to do with it. … I don't mean to suggest refs go into games thinking unfairly, but there are some arenas and some heritages that intimidate."
Durham never expected things to go well at Rupp.
"You could see the Blue Mist come down out of the ceiling and start to settle on the officials and it changed their stripes from black to Kentucky blue," Durham said.
"I remember one time up there, we get a correct call, and the ref says, 'Red ball,' and points our way. Two or three minutes later, the ball goes out on the other side of the floor. And that same ref winds up and takes three crow-hops like a guy fielding at shortstop and points their way and hollers, 'Blue ball.' Oh, no, we're not gonna have the crowd influence us. Shoot.
"Joe B. (Hall, UK coach from 1972-85) was pretty good (at working officials). But anybody coaching at Rupp is pretty good."
