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Originally Posted by RichMSN
Personally, I'd rather ignore it, but I just can't.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jdmara
The headband rule is not liked by many. Honestly, I'm just as much to blame as the official that doesn't enforce it at all.
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Originally Posted by mj
Many coaches will make the claim that you're the first to enforce it. I highly doubt that is the case though.
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Originally Posted by mbyron
Our association covered this in some detail, and strongly encouraged everyone to enforce it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spence
"Strongly encouraged" or "required?"
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spence
The problem is when you enforce it and then you watch other games where its not enforced. I'm watching the championship game of a big tournament right now and the green jersey team is wearing yellow headbands. Now I know why I get the rolling of the eyes when I enforce it.
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I was asked to fill in for a prep school freshman game yesterday. In the middle of the third period, I spotted a young man playing with a white jersey wearing a white undershirt with about a quarter-inch of light blue piping on the end of the short sleeves. I took him over to his head coach and told him that when I officiated his team the next time he better not have this illegal undershirt on or he wouldn't be allowed to play. Why did I allow him to continue playing with the illegal undershirt? Didn't spot it in warmups, they wanted to play as soon as we walked onto the court, and he didn't play in the first half, so it was too late, for me, at least, in the game. Freshman level game. Didn't want to appear overly officious. A few years ago I would have definitely not allowed him to play before he removed the undershirt at the bench, but now he would have to make the trek all the way to the locker room, maybe by himself, due to the recent removing jersey technical foul rule. I came up with lots of excuses not to penalize him.
As I was driving home I replayed the game in my head, as I usually do, and I thought to myself, I should have not allowed him to play with the illegal undershirt. It's almost February, he should be aware of the rule by now, and it shouldn't have mattered that he was only fourteen years old, and it was only a freshman level game. And then I started thinking about all my colleagues who may have allowed him to play for the past two and a half months, and started thinking about blaming them, when it dawned on me, if I'm not part of the solution, I'm part of the problem. No one is to blame except me.
If everyone of us, and I mean every single one of us, at all levels, had RichMSN's attitude (Personally, I'd rather ignore it, but I just can't), back in December, we wouldn't be having this discussion today.