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Originally Posted by Nevadaref
I'm so sick of this cop-out response. No personal offense to the poster, but to anyone who shares that opinion, I have to speak out.
1. When you are hired as a game official, you have a job to do. That job is enforce the rules. You don't have the right to elect to not enforce certain rules because you don't care for them.
2. So you don't like being the "fashion police." Well, tough. Then go work some rec league what Old School and MeRef in which the players can wear whatever this wish. Or go do that and1 tour. This is HS basketball and there are people who sit on national and state committees and write these regulations for the betterment of the game and attempt to keep the attention where it belongs--on the skills of the players. They know a heck of a lot more about what is proper for HS basketball than you do.
3. Are there other rules which you choose also to disregard? Perhaps you don't want to be the "traveling police" or the "OOB police." What about the "3 seconds gestopo?" Perhaps you don't want to be the "language police" so you allow the players to swear like sailors. Do you also not enforce bench decorum because you don't want to get a reputation as the "coach police?" One can say this about a number of aspects of the game. Uniforms is not unique.
4. If you think that its different with uniforms because they don't have anything to do with the conduct of the game, then ask yourself what you would think of a referee who didn't wear a striped shirt and black shoes, but instead showed up for the game a red T-shirt and colorful running shoes? He states that he will call the game just the same and will stand out from the teams since they aren't wearing red, so what's the big deal. Why are we worried about the "referee fashion police?"  |
Nevada...
Wow...I feel properly chastised. Of course I enforce the uniform...
and all other...rules. Just yesterday, in fact, in a boys HS JV scrimmage I sent a kid off because his hair band had a small metal piece that held it together.
My point is that the hair restraint rule (3.5.3d.) is very precise: "Rubber, cloth or elastic bands may be used to control hair. Hard items, including, but not limited to, beads, barrettes, and bobby pins, are prohibited." That's it. Not even any Case Book situations (at least in the 2007-08 CB). So, if a kid wants to wear a bright pink and green rubber band with Nike logos all over it (as Bob Jenkins noted) anywhere on his/her head, as long as it's controlling the hair and is obviously not a headband then why would I even want to address it? If the apparently omniscient rules committee wants to change it,
then I will enforce what they write.
That's my point...
trying to enforce anything beyond the specific hair restraint rule would be an example of being the "Fashion Police". It would be like an official thinking the jump stop is a bad rule and therefore call it travelling whenever he sees it. That would be an example of the "Travelling Police", not someone who refuses to call travelling. In my example of the bikini-wearing girls team,
there's no rule on bras for players, yet my misguided partner didn't like it so he wanted to enforce a non-existent rule. He was trying to act as the "Fashion Police". That's why I say why ask for trouble when there is nothing illegal being done??
And finally, just because someone or some group of people sit on a committee, that doesn't necessarily mean "They know a heck of a lot more about what is proper for HS basketball than you [I] do." They have a job they agree to do ...that doesn't automatically give them the wisdom of Soloman and make everyone else ignorant, provincial boobs. If so, there would never be any reason to change any of the original rules...they would already be perfect