[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Going by nothing but common sense, it seems to me the purpose of a Point of Emphasis is to say, in effect, "We're getting lots of complaints that our officials are neglecting [whatever]. The rule on this is already written the way we want it, there's no need to clarify it, people are just forgetting it in administering the game. So please try to remember it."

Still going by common sense, if points of emphasis kept accumulating, eventually everything would be a "point of emphasis". And when everything is a point of emphasis, nothing is. Because you can emphasize some things only at the expense of attention to others. As magicians know, attention is a limited resource, and if you tell someone to focus on X, they have to take at least some focus off Y. Once you're satisfied enough attention is being paid to X, there's no need to keep emphasizing it, and continuing to do so would be counterproductive to overall administration.

Not being a reader of Fed basketball rules, what I gather from reading here is that Fed may be chronically abusing the concept of a Point of Emphasis, and labeling things as POE that are really not, such as interpretations. (This may be specific to some sports, as I haven't seen such abuse in football.) You can emphasize an interpretation (although the need to do so calls into question whether the underlying rule is written adequately), but the POE itself should not be an interpretation.

I do not think POEs are about just the officials. POEs are about everyone involved in the game. Many things are because coaches complain about things and are not aware of the actual rules. I see officials call many things that are pointed out before a POE comes out, but the reality is that coaches complain or suggest the rule is something else. Even the traveling POE this year I am sure is because there are officials that actually call these things properly, but get a lot of blowbacks. Look at what the NCAA did about traveling? They basically said not to call things that are not egregious, even though there were officials properly calling travels, but when they did, the coaches and players would act like "That is a good move" or say, "He gets 2 and a half steps" which is not the rule. So the POE is to deal with what is often misunderstood, not what officials are necessarily doing. Because they almost never reference what officials are not calling, they focus on the rule or the way they wish it to be addressed. Similar to the timeout acknowledgment and even put in the POE, "Coaches have to understand that official's focus is not on them requesting a timeout" or something to that effect.

Peace