I asked a ref if he could give me a technical foul for thinking bad things about him. He said, of course not. I said, well, I think you stink. And he gave me a technical. You can’t trust em.

In this anecdote, Valvano turns a complaint about officiating into a comic lesson about rules, intent, and human discretion. He tries to draw a bright line between private thought and punishable speech—only to show how quickly that line collapses once the “thought” is voiced. The punchline (“You can’t trust ’em”) is less a serious indictment than a coach’s wry acknowledgment that referees, like everyone else, react to tone and disrespect as much as to technical definitions. The story also reflects Valvano’s larger public persona: using humor and self-deprecation to defuse frustration and to make the competitive world of sports feel recognizably human.