[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

I am sorry that I did not understand Dan's humor. But too many officials get themselves into trouble because they do not speak in the technical terms of their sport when explaining rulings.

Charging is illegal personal contact caused by pushing or moving into an opponent's torso. When officiating the defense we have to rule first as to whether the contact was legal or illegal. If the contact is illegal we have to decided if it was a block or a charge. And, finally if the contact was by a player in control of the ball, the foul is a player control foul.

Too many times this year I have called player control foul on a A1 for hooking B1, and when I gave the player control foul the first words out of the A1's coach's mouth was: How can that be charging?

Or, when A1, who is control of the ball goes airborne, passes the ball of to A2 then charges into a B1, had a legal position on the floor. Team B is is in the bonus situation. I give the charging signal and then award B1 free throws, and Team A's coach complains that B does not get free throws for a "offensive" foul.

In the play I described earlier I did have a charging foul and in this case this charging foul was a player control foul.

The point I am trying to make here is that we has officials must now what is in Rule 4 and use the language of the rule book. When we use words and phrases that do not appear in the rule book to describe plays and rulings we cause more problems for use than we solve. Coaches will use any advantage that they can get against us to cause us problems. That is just the nature of the beast.

When people present plays for discussion, it is because they are really trying to start honest discussions for the benefit of everybody. But when we do not use the correct language it just mucks up the whole problem.

This is the biggest problem I have to overcome with new students in my officiating class (and too many veteran officials for that matter). New students use words and descriptions that they have heard TV and radio announcers use (and too many times veteran officials also) that do not accurately explain the ruling or what accutually happened on the court. Besides "offensive" foul for NCAA and NFHS games the use of goaltending for both goaltending and basketball interference. We are our own worst enemy. If we use the language of our sport we will be able to a much better job of educating the layman in the rules and mechanics of the sport.