[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by AtlUmpSteve

So they establish game rules because software programmers are too foolish or too rigid to establish those entry fields as alphanumeric rather than numeric? That's such a simple change, it's absurd. And the NCAA mandates what software the schools must use, so they certainly have the ability to insist on correction.

Personally, I really doubt that is the reason. Rather, I believe that "justification" is an after-the-fact excuse to obfuscate the truth.

Originally Posted by Altor

IMO, it's poorly written software then. The player number should be a string not an integer. You don't add or subtract or perform other calculations with the digits. They have no numeric value...they are just symbols.

Addressing AtlUmpSteve first. Considering I officiated women's college basketball from 1974 to 2008, and the rule change was made in the late 1980s or early 1990s (I am in Florida for Spring training college softball right now, so I cannot climb up into my attic and check my rules books for the exact year the change was made and if I were a betting man I would bet on the early 1990s), that was the exact reason the NFHS and NCAA gavE for the rule change.

And addressing Alton, I would agree that even it should not that difficult to write code that differentiated between the two numbers.

MTD, Sr.