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Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
And when the Rules Editor speaks, like the old E.F. Hutton commercial, everybody should listen.
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Mark,
As much as I appreciate your loyalty to your position and respect your support for Mr. Schindler, I do not accept this reasoning at all. How long since he was Rules Editor? 10 years? If the current editor, Mary Struckhoff, and the Rules Committee, want this rule to be as clearly ennunciated as you articulate, then they had better put it in the Rule Book or Case Book. Your citation deals with a particular fact set involving an official disqualifying a player. You extrapolate this to include that once an official does that, it is the official's responsibility to make sure he stays on the bench or leaves with an adult.
My reading is much simpler: the official may not send the player to the locker room, unless it is an unusal event and then with an adult. Once we do our job of sending the player to the bench, the coach is in charge. You say that Mr. Schindler told you otherwise. If so, that needs to be clearly stated in the Rule Book, not in a personal briefing with only some officials.
This is one of a long line of rulings that the NFHS has made that are open to too much interpretation from individuals and individual states.