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NFHS: It's not clear if assisting the runner could only be called during a live ball. Their rule says that a coach may not assist a runner "during playing action". Does that mean when the ball is live? Nothing in the their case book seems to address this point.
USA/ASA: Their rule states that the ball must be live to call assisting a runner. But...they also have a case play where a runner misses home plate, after on over the fence home run, and is pushed back toward the plate just before entering the dugout. The ruling is that this runner would be out. So, it's the lone exception to their rule.
This sounds like one of those rules where the printed rule pretty much matches throughout multiple organizations, but they've issued interpretations that deviate away from each other, based on various "what if" and "maybe" scenarios.
Kind of like with an intentionally dropped ball. The rules all agree that you can't intentionally drop the ball in certain situations. But I can think of at least four different ways that a "dropped ball" is defined by four different sanctioning bodies!
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