[rwest]

At the beginning of each set of offiicial interpretations is the following...


Publisher’s Note: The National Federation of State High School Associations is the only source of official high school interpretations. They do not set aside nor modify any rule. They are made and published by the NFHS in response to situations presented.

So, this situation must have been presented to the rules committee. They had to have discussed it and voted on the correct ruling. It is hard for me to believe that out of the 13 members of the rules committee someone didn't mention many of the things mentioned in this thread. It is also hard for me to believe that the rule committee does not understand the simply rules regarding backcourt violation.

So for those on this board who suggest we should ignore this official interpretation, my question is based on what? On what the rule book says? No. It is actually based on your interpretation of the rule book. There is no case play that addresses this exact situation. There is an official interpretation that does, yet we are to ignore it because it doesn't make sense to us? If you ignore this one because it doesn't agree with your interpretation then what prevents you from ignoring other interpretations? You are setting a precedence and you are weaking any future argument you have. If you disregard this ruling than in the future you can not use an official interpretation to support your view on another debate.


We can't pick and chose which official interpretations we will enforce. The rule committee members are not physicists. There are other rules that don't make sense to me but we have to enforce them as is. For example, no one can convince me that slapping the back board while the ball is on the rim can not iterfere with the ball going in. I know it is not by rule basket interference but by physics it can be. However, I call it the way the rule committee wants me to.

Oh, and for the record. I agree with many of you on this interpretation. I agree it is bad in that it doesnt' make sense. However, this is an official interpretation. I disagree with those who say to disregard it because it doesn't agree with their interpreation of the rule book. The committee put out the interpretation to address this issue. If you disregard this interp then I can disregard another interp and not be ridiculed for it.

Sometimes the rule book is wrong and the official interp is correct. I know I've made this agrument before and someone said then they should change the rule book the following year. Well, that would be nice but it doesnt' always happen.

As an example from another sport I call: softball. For years the ASA rule book was written that would prohibit the batter from becoming a batter-runner and advancing to 1st base on a drop third strike under a certain set of circumstances. Yet by official interp the batter was allowed to advance under these same set of circumstantces. I can't rember the exact wording, but the rule book was wrong. The official interpretation was to allow them to advance. So to use the arguments some have made here, I should have disallowed the batter from advancing because the official interpretation didn't match the rule book.

Trust the process!


Disclaimer: No offense to anyone was intended by this post.