I just now finally got a respnse from Mary Struckoff from NFHS Rules committee about this play that was strongly argued in the original post. Many of you said I was completely wrong and we agreed to disagree. I have copied Mary's reply and her interpretation of this ruling. please see below!
Sorry for the delay and thanks for your patience.
Actually, I have given this much thought and have been thinking about it for some time now.
I do believe the intent of the rule is that where the ball is touched is important. If it comes back to the frontcourt after touching the official in the backcourt and the offensive player regains control in the frontcourt, both have frontcourt status and no violation has occurred. They just got lucky that the ball hit the official and came back....that can be true of an errant pass about to fly out of bounds and hits the official and stays inbounds.....In order to be a violation, it must be touched in the backcourt.
I will run this by the committee in April to make sure they agree and see if they want to make any editorial changes to the rule itself.
Mary
Mary Struckhoff
NFHS Assistant Director
Basketball Rules Editor/National Interpreter
If it happens this way, I will NOT call an over and back violation!
