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A Hypervigilant or Safety Conscious Ref?
A buddy urged me to partner with him for a men’s wreck league benefit fundraiser tourney last Saturday and Sunday-- eight teams playing 2x elimination. It was my first time doing a game at this particular venue ( a local Ymca gym) and the crowd was mostly wives, girlfriends, and supporting family members of the teams. Lots of women, kids and grandparent/relatives and some business community sponsors in attendance. So, here was my issue: there was this one player (fairly talented but somewhat cocky acting) who would let his mouthguard [MG]hang out of mouth during active play. Think “steph curry” like he lets his MG dangle halfway out his mouth dripping slobber all over the place like steph does when you see NBA on TV. I will call this player “pseudo-steph” (PS). Well PS is at the FT line in first half and MG is dangling. I notice it because this MG is one of those kind of colored ones with colored faux teeth area. I told PS to put his MG back in properly when active play resumes or to remove the MG entirely—he nodded “OK” in a dismissive fashion; the other players on the lane positions poke fun at him saying stuff like “you better mind that ref” or “yeah keep that slobber to yourself” , etc.. FT’s are completed and play resumes; then as PS is playing defense his MG is dangling and slobber is there and he is knaw-ing on it—I get a good look as I am in T position. I immediately whistle the ball dead and issue an “unsporting tech” on PS. Then PS says “what I do ref?!” to which I replied “your MG is dangling and you were warned 30 seconds ago about it”. He mumbled something inaudibly under his breath as he walked away—that I presumed was not “merry Christmas” then walked the other way. He did not allow his MG to waggle anymore.
Question I have is: was I being hypervigilant? Was I protecting the safety of other players [and quite possibly also of PS]? And/or would any of you’all have done a similar officiating action? |
There may be variation between rule sets, but under FED rules, if you felt "wearing" the mouth guard in this manner "is dangerous or confusing to other players or is not appropriate", you should not allow any team member to "wear" the equipment (3-5-1). Rule 3-7 also allows you to not permit any player to participate if in your judgement any item constitutes as safety concern.
If safety was your concern, then your action is supported by rule. With that in mind, I qualified my statement for 2 reasons. The first is that I detected a sense of distaste for "pseudo-Steph" in your description of the situation. The second reason is that you don't mention safety until the end of the post, which suggested to me that you are using that as a reason to justify the action you took. I'm just trying to provide honest feedback, so if I'm off base with this, I apologize, but my honest interpretation of the situation as I read it was that you didn't care for his cockiness or some other aspect of his play and that was the reason you pressed the issue. If that is the case, then I would make the case that the rules don't support your initial request for him to "wear" the mouth guard properly. The technical foul could be supported on the basis of the players failure to follow the instruction of an official, although the debate on this point is that the rule does instruct the official to not allow a player to participate with equipment that is dangerous, and thus the proper action would could be to require the player to leave the game until his equipment conforms to the rules. And in conclusion, since you ask how we would have handled the situation, I'll let you know that I would have required the player to put the mouth guard in properly explaining to him that it presents a potential choking hazard when not used properly and made sure his coach was aware of the situation. The benefit of not working Adult/Wreck games is that HS coaches will typically take care of the issue because they don't want to deal with the headache of it coming up again later in the game. If I did subsequently notice it again, I would stop play and notify his coach that the player has to be removed from the game until the equipment situation was corrected. |
I'm having a hard time envisioning how this would or could create an unsafe condition, either for the player or for others on the court. In a (1) men’s (2) wreck league (3) benefit fundraiser, I would have passed on this.
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Interesting.
I can see a safety issue with slobber going on the floor and so they slipping and falling. The solution seems to have taken care of the problem. |
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In the end, I determined it did not. |
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Pass on noticing or caring....pass even more so on a technical foul.
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Regarding other follow-up posts about ignoring the issue, I am lacking experience in Men's Wreck games so maybe I let it go in this case. I've experienced a player choking on an altered mouth guard in a HS game, so I probably do say something. Fortunately the choking situation wasn't that scary (at least not after the fact), and I didn't have any permanent consequences from it. That's right...I was the choking player. Completely my own fault for altering the mouth guard, but still something I remember vividly. |
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IMO, he should have been T'd for being black and cocky in Kansas. |
OK, all I have deleted any reference to ethnicity in the post as upon reflection it was not necessary---I was writing this post in the 'heat' of the moment and upon gathering my soberness I have amended the post and hereby state that any reference to ethnicity has been deleted and not included in my rendering of an opinion. Thanks for you'alls input.
But LOL @ BNR post: IMO, he should have been T'd for being black and cocky in Kansas. |
Did not get to read this before the "black" aspect was taken out so that had no factor in my still scratching my head over this one.
He's playing in a men's league. If he's of no overt danger to anybody but himself (nor disrespectful, nor any of the other major sins), let it go. |
I've seen mouth guards hanging out in the last season or two as Curry's profile has risen. That being said, I'll usually warn a player to the tune of "Either keep that thing in your mouth or get rid of it". I've not had to deal with a player continuing to let it (mouthpiece) hang out (yet). I think I'd choose the route of sending him/her out of the game before whacking them.
My line of thinking is that the mouthguard is likely covered with body fluid...potentially transferring it to other players is just as dangerous as an open cut or blood on a uniform/court. |
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