[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by ChuckElias

No, I told you that he shouldn't be allowed to stand there. Get him back to his bench.

What if, 2 minutes into the game, you see a girl who is wearing earrings? You gonna T her? No. You're gonna make her take them out. Does that mean she should be allowed to play with them without a penalty? That's a silly question.

It's the same thing. Something that you're not allowed to do; but for which no penalty is prescribed. So you fix it and move on.

JMO.

Isn't this situation similar to the concerns the FED had when they issued a POE re: players going into their opponents end or running through the center circle during the pre-game?

That was POE #1 in the 2003/04 book, if you still have it.

Excerpts from that POE:
1) "A policy could be established confining teams to their own free-throw semi-circle for pre-game huddles or rituals..."
2) "Officials should be prepared to assess a technical foul to a team member/team demonstrating these unsporting acts. The specific inappropriate actions may be individually penalized or the entire team may be assessed one technical foul, if they collectively engage in any appropriate behavior(s). Since all team members are considered bench personnel before the game and during intermissions, the head coach would also be charged indirectly with the technical foul".

My Thoughts:
- The situation and concerns of that POE are very similar to the situation that we are discussing. There really is no difference between a "pre-game huddle" and an "in-game huddle". The big difference is that we already have rules in place (already cited) that definitively state that team members must stay in their bench area during time-outs.
- A technical foul is an appropriate response for an unsporting act that is similar to the concerns of the POE. The language of R10-1-4 is vague enough to support a team "T" and the language of R10-3-7 definitely will support a player "T". You could use R2-8-1 if you wanted to also.
- No matter what, the language of R10-3-7 or R2-8-1 allows an official to make his own determination as to what an "unsporting act" is, and also allows them to penalize their determination with a technical foul. Iow, if Tony says that it's an unsporting act, then it is an unsporting act.

I agree with you that the best way to handle this is just to shoo the little jerk back where he belongs. However, that isn't the point here. The point is that we're still trying to come up with some kind of a reasonable answer to a stoopid IAABO test question that really didn't have a reasonable or definitive answer in the first damn place.()

[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Oct 16th, 2005 at 09:31 AM]