Quote:
Originally Posted by AremRed
You'll find a lot of disagreement on this point. As I see it our job as officials is to make sure the game is played fairly, according to the rules. This is one of the cases where applying the spirit of the rules is more important than going precisely by the book.
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It is not for us to make personal judgments as to what is fair or not. The rules are in place so that game can be played fairly by both teams. I wouldn't use the spirit of the rules as a reason for making or not making a call when you are discussing with a coach. They are not going to care how you interpret the spirit of the rule and your assignor will not be able to defend your actions in that case either. As I said before, I am all for stretching rules to fit the situation at hand, but I haven't seen a compelling argument for using any of the rule options yet that I would be comfortable applying. And yes I believe there is a difference between applying the spirit of the rules to do what is fair and stretching the rules based on ones judgment of what happened on the play.
As an example from what was discussed in regards to this play. I would not call a flagrant technical on this play. If the offended coach asked my why I would tell them the action of throwing the shoe does not meet the criteria of being extreme or persistent. That would be my judgment. I would not tell them I don't think ejecting the player is fair or that it is within the spirit of the rule.