"Let the Lead Have 1st Crack"

[packersowner]

I am sure there has been a ton of debate on this in the past, but I want to first say that I have long struggled with this concept. In every pre-game meeting I have been in over the past few years, the R states (2 or 3 Man) "Let's have the lead get 1st crack on anything coming to the basket."

I was looking for something else today and across the NFHS Officials Manual (I was looking at the 2013-2015 manual) Page 62, 3.3.2 C

1. When a player with the ball starts a drive to the basket from an officials primary area, that official has primary coverage of the player and the ball all the way to the basket - even if the ball moves into another officials primary area.


Is this a case where officials are disagreeing with the way NFHS states how this should be handled or has it just become the popular way of handling this over time (institutional/tribal), etc.?

Thoughts?