Don't be a jersey plumber?
 

Search has not found past discussion on this adequately, so given another recent thread's segue into blood on jerseys, etc. ...

Junior needs to change out of a jersey, for whatever reason (blood, wrong type, illegal fashion details, etc.). Officials instruct him to leave (or not enter) game.

Time out. Junior is engulfed by teammates. Nobody can see any disrobing, but -- voila! -- Junior is suddenly ready with legal/adequate jersey as timeout ends. No way he left the visual confines of the court, but nobody actually had a visual of him changing.

Whaddya have?

[Does 10-4-1-h's "within the visual confines of the playing area" mean actually seen within this area, or does it mean reasonable deduction tells you it took place in this area and still must be punished?]

Seems this would not be place for an ordinary "don't be a plumber" admonishment but would like to know from the collective wisdom here.

I got nothing, lets play ball. There was some discussion awhile back on this, I can't remember the exact threads, but someone mentioned something about a girl wearing the wrong jersey and needing to leave to exchange with a different girl. As long as the coach has control of the situation, I am not going going to get worked up about this.

First of all if I am having a player remove, change or take off the jersey in any way, I am telling them explicitly that they need to do so completely out of the view of the court. And I will make emphasize this so that they realize it could be a T if done. The reason being is the other coach could see this and know the rule. I do not want to even have an issue that someone can say we did not enforce. I do this all the time when there is an undershirt or some other situation where they have to take off their jersey. It is just preventative officiating. Because most of the time they are not going to do what you just suggested and I do not want to hear it all game that we passed on a very easy rule.

Peace

I would agree it's best to give instructions to leave, but, at the end of the day, like anything else, if I didn't see it, it didn't happen.

Agreed. That's the first thing I'll tell the HC: The player needs to change his jersey out of the view of the court and for the very reasons JRut laid out. If the player starts changing I'll tell them again. After that it's a T. IMO, that's not being a plumber. If I tell you twice not to do something that warrants a T and you do it anyway, that's your headache.

What Exit ???
 

Good thread for everyone to read, not just plumbers in New Jersey.

Gotcha on the instructions about leaving to change. I do the same.

So, JRut (and others): If you don't literally see any change taking place but can deduce that it did occur (within the visual confines of the court, that is), it would still be served with a T?

Not being obstinate here. Just looking for the thought process. For most things, I agree: If I don't see it, I can't call it. But this seems different.

(I agree also, btw, that we have to be very, very careful about selectively enforcing rules. Coach A is going to want what Coach B already gets every time.)

How are you going to penalize something you did not see?

Peace

If you're leading us to the "can't punish what you don't see" answer, I'm concerned about how to penalize verbal unsporting acts (taunting, threats, etc) unless we see the offending person's lips moving. I've never seen language such as, "It is a violation when...and the official sees it". If seeing something is the standard for enforcing a penalty, the criminal justice system (specifically the value of forensic sciences) is about to take a number of steps back.

That said, I feel there are certain things that occur that we don't see but have enough evidence to know what occurred and should be penalized as described by rule as long as we are able to do so within a reasonable time period. This is one of those circumstances where if you know the player didn't leave the visual confines of the court but his/her uniform is in compliance with the rules after the team breaks the huddle, you know what happened. Conversely if a team member changes on the bench during play and you didn't see it, unless there is some unique circumstance that gives you absolute knowledge that he/she didn't leave the visual confines of the court, you shouldn't penalize it.

The same principle is used when there are six players participating in the game at the same time. If the officials did not observe (see) six on the court, a technical foul cannot be assessed. That's what he's getting at.

What if they are a wizard? If I didn't see it I'm not giving the player a T. You'll switch to my view when you call a T for something you didn't see and then learned it never even happened. :D

On a serious note. You can change jerseys on the court while always having a jersey on. I can think of two ways to do it. Moral of the story: Don't assess a technical to something you never saw.

What does this have to do with the topic we are discussing? Taunting is not always about the words you say, it is often about what you do, like getting in someone's face or your gestures. I have never penalized or would never penalize someone for taunting if all I did was have someone after the fact come to me and say, "Ref, he said something to me." But since that is where you want to go with this, I guess.

I just heard a story the other day from a former coach that some college teams had a fight in the locker room area, do you penalize a fight that you never saw in any way? I would hope not considering you have no idea who threw a punch or who said anything in the actions of such an event? Maybe you would, I do not know.

Again, if you know something happen you can do what you want. But as I said, I make it very clear before any such action takes place what they are to do and even tell the coaches and players it is a T if they take off their jersey in the game. Almost always we are the ones directing them to change their jersey. I have even been in games where the lights are out before the game for the introductions and we are in relative darkness when this happen so not sure I am watching every movement of players to know what they are doing. But again, if this is your thing, knock yourself out.

Peace

And you can take a non-conforming shirt off from under a jersey without removing the jersey . . it may be awkward, but it can be done . . .

Regarding the issue of verbal taunting, I was thinking about a situation in which an individual says something with his back to you and you can't see his face to say you "saw" him say anything. For example on a breakaway the defender hustles back and blocks the layup attempt. He then follows it with a "don't bring that sh*& in here MF" but was facing away from you when he said it...can you punish that without seeing his lips move to verify it was him? I would, but because I'm confident of which player said it. The context makes sense. Different situation but same language used with two players of the opposing team standing next to each and this is said jokingly, however you can't see which one of them said it...do you penalize that? I don't because I don't have enough information to know who said what, but I do step in and give both players a heads up that they need to watch the language.

Coming back to the jersey issue, I agree with you on preventative officiating. I'm not, however, going to pass on the T just because I can't directly see the jersey removed because a team constructs a temporary dressing room in the form a huddle or by holding up towels after I've told the coach the player needs leave the visual confines of the playing area as removing the uniform on the bench area will result in a technical foul.

I'm not making a judgement or telling people what to look for or how to deal with this or any other issue. My point was simply that you can penalize things you don't directly see. There is also value in Dad's point of being careful about penalizing things you don't see, but the reality is that we have 4 other senses and the power of reasoning that should guide us.

PS: Dad, you may be correct that a person can remove one jersey after putting another on, but the infraction resulting in a technical foul is "removing the jersey", not for being without a jersey at all. As the word "the" is used in the rule and is a definite article, we have to determine which jersey the rule is considering. The most logical answer is that it refers to the jersey the player is wearing to start the game, and therefore removing that jersey regardless of how many other uniform articles are in place is an infraction. The intent of the rule was to have team members change in the dressing/locker room, which was addressed by the AR published when this became a rule but is not currently included in the current ARs. If I don't see a player leave the court and I don't see him wearing the jersey he had on before going into a team huddle, the conclusion I'm going to make is that he took it off.

We all choose our hills to die on. But this one seems a very strange choice to me.