[BillyMac]

Jurassic Referee:

Please check out the Court Diagram on page seven of the NFHS Basketball Rule Book. Notice that there are no twenty-eight foot hash marks in the diagram. Also check out Rule 1-13-2 that defines the coaching box. The term "hash mark" is not mentioned at all in that rule citation.

I'm not sure, I didn't start keeping my old rule books until just a few years ago, but I believe that the hash marks and the closely guarded midcourt forecourt rule associated with them, were changed in 1987.

I'm guessing that about one-quarter of the seventy high schools that our local IAABO board services still have the outdated twenty-eight foot hash marks. The remaining three-quarters of the high schools that our local board services are either brand new schools, or have brand new gymnasiuims, or have had their gymnasium floors recently repainted and refinished and do not have the outdated hash marks.

As a former interscholastic coach, I was sorry to see the hash marks dissappear. I would instruct my players to fill the lanes on the fast break, running wide enough to touch the hash marks, in filling the outside lanes.