Steve did a very good job of explaining the situation as I see it. Since the thread is about a high school game, my comments are limited to a HS contest played under NFHS rules.
The NFHS does not give umpires any room for judgment wrt jewelry. If you observe it, there is an escalating penalty by rule: 1st offense, team warning; 2nd offense, offending player and HC restricted to the bench.
In no case is a player wearing jewelry to be allowed to play. She may keep her jewelry on (we cannot order her to take it off), but she may not play if she is wearing it.
Speaking personally, unless I have observed or heard something that would inform me otherwise -- see my last sentence in this post
, I do not assume a bandaid on the ear (or nose) to be hiding jewelry. I am not so naive as all that, but OTOH, I am not going to personally inspect the player to confirm one way or the other.
In the situation where a player's coach is informed that the player is wearing jewelry (I don't discuss it with the players themselves; I leave that to the coach. I also handle the penalty issues at that time as well - i.e. warning on first offense, etc.), IF that player shows back up on the field with a bandaid covering where the jewelry was, I would certainly again discuss this with the coach; specifically asking the coach to confirm that the player did, in fact, remove the jewelry rather than just cover it with a bandaid.
BTW, I once had a HS player ask me before the game if covering ear studs with a bandaid was permissible!
