To T or not to T; that is the question?

[Smitty]

Originally Posted by IUgrad92

That's exactly what I'm doing. My guess is that you would apply the rule as stated in the book in the second situation. It's interesting how some officials cherry pick rules and make justifications to applying/not applying them....

If I'm correct, in that you would give a T to a player that had that same brain fart as the coach had, and took off his jersey in the confines of the court, then in my opinion, your line of reasoning for giving the coach a pass falls short of being consistent.

It depends. If a kid takes his shirt off in anger or disgust - easy decision. If a kid is told they need to take off an illegal undershirt and was not told to leave the confines of the court, I might let it go. Whenever I tell a kid they need to take off an undershirt, I also tell them to go into the hallway.

Things are not black and white - there are shades of grey, and those shades are darker or lighter depending on where you live. I've never been in a place that expects me to do things by the letter of the book. But if I ever am in that place, I will do as they expect. I never gave warnings or blew my whistle when we came onto the court before I moved to Texas. But that's what they do here, so am I going to be a pioneer and do what you think I should do instead? No. That would be detrimental to my officiating career.