Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
I would assume that Rut and his partners noticed this well before the start of the game and approached the HC to see if the team would be able to rectify the problem before the start of the game so that there would be no need for a TF charged to the HC.
And I agree with Rut, I do not like having to be a fashion policeman.
MTD, Sr.
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You do not have to assume, it is a standing policy for the last few years to not only review uniforms, but we have all kinds of things like waivers for uniforms, a policy to look at uniforms before the game by making sure kids take off or pull up their shooting shirts.
If you read Referee Magazine at all, about 3 years ago there was an article in Referee Magazine over a team that wore a uniform that was illegal during our state finals and the state people insisted that there be a technical foul given for a team that had reached that level of the playoffs. In that article happens to be a friend of mine who had that team during that playoffs and worked the State Finals that year was quoted about the entire situation.
Nine officials were penalized for not the following year for not recognizing a uniform issue in the playoffs. I am talking about guys that were State Final officials or close to being SF official were only allowed to work the first round of the playoffs regardless of their previous background. We affectionately call those individuals the
"North Lawndale Nine" because of this uniform issue and them being clearly penalized. Well the year after our state wanted this enforced heavily and it was assume that only a couple of schools would have a problem, they found out well over 100 had illegal uniforms the following year from the city teams to the most rural of rural teams. Teams were allowed to get a waiver for about a year to avoid being penalized and there is a policy about when and how the schools inform the officials before the game they have a waiver as well.
We are now in the 3rd year of all of this uniform stuff and emails have been flying around about other teams and officials not enforcing the rule on uniforms during the Thanksgiving Tournaments that would only take a ruler to know if the insert was over 4 inches and if the lettering comes over the numbers by an inch. And those that did not enforce the rule or recognize a uniform are being threatened by playoff assignments (and I am not talking young and inexperienced officials). It is our state’s policy here to be very vigilant in enforcing this rule which even has us doing something most here would not imagine to check and since a team’s uniforms apply to every player on the team, we have been told to give a T to start the game for these issues or else. Like I said before, this is been a big issue here and the powers that be do not care what the NF wants or what other states want on this issue. So you or anyone can quote case plays or rules interpretations all day, but that is not what we are to deal with or the reasoning for why we do what we do. As I said before, we do not work for the NF and if they have a policy of how to handle these situations, we handle them the way we are asked. That is why we had a T last night before the game for uniforms on a team that was not previously recognized for this issue. This was such a problem that the game never felt right because this silly issue was hanging over the game the entire time. BTW the team that has the issue lost the game by more 2 points, but it always seemed like this issue tainted any interaction during that game.
Peace