[Rich]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee

I would ask -- exactly what did you do to prevent the situation from occurring?

[/B]

Know what, Rich? I don't know whether we really can prevent these situations from coming up. Some coaches just get so involved that they don't just don't know when they're supposed to get their kids back out there. I certainly agree that you don't want to be heavy-handed out there, and call this one right by the book. But, I don't think that you can really make a hard and fast rule that you're never going to call it either. Jmo, but I think that you have to almost look at every case before you make up your mind how to handle it. If I think that someone's getting an advantage out of taking some extra time that they're not entitled to, then, yes, I'd probably do something about it. It does bother me to see 5 players from one team out on the floor, all set to go, and the other coach keeping them waiting. Might sound wishy/washy, but I just think that there's too many variables(score,time left,warnings,etc) involved to say that I'd always handle these types of situations one particular way or another. [/B][/QUOTE]

Agreed.

I also remember a part of this thread where someone mentioned a technical and we talked about how we had to have a violation first (via the resumption-of-play procedure).

I immediately thought -- well, that's not true in ALL cases....I mean, if I walked over and tried to get a team out of the huddle and the coach swore at me, we'd have a technical, but not for delaying the game at that point.

I simply haven't run into any of those issues since moving out of the subvarsity level. Teams come out --- not always at the same time, but close enough. The only problem I had at the varsity level was a team who wanted to use its last time out (full time out) for subs and then demanded that I end the timeout since the calling team was ready. Umm, not in NFHS ball, and I almost had to whack the coach over it.

I respect Juulie's opinions and I'm not saying she couldn't do exactly what she recommended where she lives -- I'm just saying that anyone reading her post should recognize that in some places it may lead to some unpleasantries for the officials.

--Rich