[amusedofficial]

Round these parts, officials have absolutely no clout over whether it's a crew of two or a crew of three. It's basically tournament time only for the crew of three. This is not an area to draw a line in the sand, especially since our association made a collective *** of itself by suing over being asked to watch the kids shake hands after the game.

IN most high schools, the kids are paying user fees for sports. The schools are flat-out not going to increase the officials fees to handle an additional official over ten home games because as it stands they're putting the squeeze on the parents (so much for free public education), selling candy bars and cutting JV or frosh squads to keep a program going.

Whether or not there is another set of eyes off-ball does not matter to programs fighting to stay alive and fighting to have as wide a level of participation as possible. It simply is not that important compared to keeping kids playing.

I would be interested in what coaches say (can't believe I just said that) about what they tell the players about how to deal with it when suddenly confronted with a crew of three at tournament time.