[SMEngmann]

Nevada, I understand where you're coming from. My point originally was that this is a terrible POE because it advocates officials being overly officious and can put us in situations where we might be forced to call a technical which does nothing to help the game and, in fact could really hurt the game. Overly officious POEs have been, in my opinion, a disturbing trend in NFHS over the last several years. For instance the POE last year on flopping, and the one to call Ts for running off the court (before the rule change to violation). Why Fed wants more Ts and trusts the judgement of officials less is beyond me, but in the real world, calling these things can often put game officials on an island. The new uniform regulations are yet another example of those in the Fed office making it tougher on us to do our jobs.

That being said, as an official, do I deliberately disobey what the NFHS says and go by my own rules? No, I call the game as I am instructed to by my assignors. Does that mean I have to like what I'm told to do and the new rules? No, but I'm an official, not an assignor, and not on the rules committee, so I call the game the way my superiors want it called. Doesn't mean I have to agree though with everything that comes down from the higher ups.

One other point, much of officiating has to deal with the spirit and intent of rules, as you well know. Rulebook officials often get in all sorts of trouble with players and coaches and routinely manage to lose control of games (at least those who I've seen). It seems like with the POEs, the rules committee wants us all to move in the direction of being rulebook officials, which I strongly disagree with.