Quote:
Originally Posted by utahkarakita
Every year I tell myself I'm done doing youth city league games. Every year I end up doing them again. The truth is, I can't resist any chance pick up the whistle - and my wife likes the money.
At any rate, the other day I whacked a kid for slamming the ball down on the floor and watching it bounce 20 feet in the air. As per the usual city league rules, the young man could not sub back in until 20 minutes of game time had passed.
I was told later that the kid was mad at his own teammate for running into him and causing a turnover. That did not change my mind about the call, but it did get me thinking...
In a high school game, a technical is two free throws, possession, and a personal/team foul. In a city league game, it's all that plus a 20-minute "ejection."
Does the fact that the penalty is much more harsh (especially if it's one of their best players) mean it should be viewed differently and called differently?
My own conclusion is: Yes. In the interest of game management, there are some conceivable situations where something that would get a good whacking in a HS game, might not get the same in a city game.
I have a pretty good idea what some of the counter-arguments to this will be. But, I've always been one that tends feels common sense has to take precedence over the rulebook sometimes.
I will now return to my world of insanity, where I debate the intricacies of youth city league game management for fun.
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1. To be precise you should use "individual" or "player" instead of "personal" in this sense as a technical foul is NEVER also a personal foul, even though it often is charged to a specific individual. Personal fouls and technical fouls are the two basic and mutually exclusive types of fouls.
2. Rec leagues are notorious for bad behavior, which drives away the better officials as they get sick of dealing with it. It seems that you officiate for a well-run league which has a strong desire to discourage unsporting behavior. That is the conclusion I draw from reading that earning a technical foul in it also mandates the loss of twenty minutes of participation. Nothing gets through to a kid like the loss of playing time!
So if you raise your threshold for assessing a technical foul in order to help the kids avoid the tougher penalty, then you are counteracting the message that the league is trying to send. What you call game management, I see as undermining the objective of the policy and the league directors who decided upon it. In my opinion that isn't good common sense.
Therefore, I recommend that you not lessen your standards for a technical foul solely due to the stiffer penalty and that you strongly support the administration of this league in their quest to stamp out such behavior by dealing with it harshly. Please contemplate this for a bit.
Best Wishes.