It was sometime after the 2004-05 school year that the OhioHSAA went from mandatory In-person State Rules Meetings to mandatory Online State Rules Meetings.
The OhioHSAA is divided into six Districts and for Basketball there would be approximately six to ten State Meetings in each District held in a three week period starting in late October. These meetings lasted from 75 to 90 minutes in length and both Head Coaches and Officials were in attendance with many of the meetings having over 300 people in attendance. The HCs and many Officials did not want to be there especially, especially if the nearest meeting one wanted to attend was on a Monday and everyone wanted to be at home or a bar watching Monday Night Football,
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HCs never asked questions and those Officials who wanted to ask questions, many times did not get complete answers because of time constraints.
The nice thing about the Online Meetings is that one can complete when it at a time that is convenient for one and the Meeting can be paused and returned to at a later time to complete it. Also, one can save the URL and review the Meeting later in the season if one desires.
If one does have a question one can email our State Rules Interpreter; of course, I do not email him because I have had to correct him a few times on interpretations that he should know and now he will not return my email, LOL! And Mark, Jr. is more qualified to be the State Rules Interpreter and Mark would rather answer Baseball and Softball questions, but I digress,
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The biggest drawback to online meetings is that online meetings meant a mileage deduction and dinner and drinks deduction while watching MNF at the sports bar after the meeting as long as at least one basketball situation was discussed,
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MTD, Sr.