You're not asking to prove their religion, and the player is not being prohibited from playing because of her religion. You're asking that she has a waiver for you to put a rule aside and she can't play because she is wearing an illegal article. She can take it off and play, or get the waiver. Stop using freedom of religion as the basis for your argument. Also using, "in the state finals I saw illegal headbands" is also a bad argument here. How do you know that officials weren't reprimanded?

An official that follows the rules should never get reprimanded or made a scape goat.

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We don't really know that...or at least not for every game. From the the first paragraph of the article, we know that she rarely played. So, the number of officials to have not addressed it may have been very small depending on how many blowouts the the team was involved in.

Then you are passing the buck to the official that follows you...just so you can avoid a potentially difficult situation. Not cool.

Since you put it that way, I would have let her play and told the coach to ensure she gets the waiver next season. It was a loser out game and they had no chance of winning. Common sense.

You aren't asking them to prove their religion. You're asking them to prove they followed the rules which any decent coach would've done the second he knew he had a player wearing a head covering.

I'll admit this -- I would've likely made a phone call during warmups.

I am not using "freedom of religion" for anything. Common sense here is that there is a religious exception. She is wearing headgear that indicates her religion. I am not going to ask her to prove it. No where in the rule book am I required to ask to see a waiver. It says we shall not permit any team member to wear equipment or apparel, in my judgement, that is not appropriate. In my judgement she plays. Easy.

The point of me bringing up the headbands in the other game is that as long as no one make an issue out of it then it is not an issue.

I will put myself in those shoes and the phone call would go something like this. "I have a player wearing a hijab. I asked the coach to produce a waiver and said she played all year without one. The coach also said she does not play much varsity". The official on the phone would hopefully say something like "We should not punish the kid. Being she does not play much anyway, lets not make a big deal about this. If she sees the floor, no problem, let her play. If they win we will get her the waiver before the next game. If they lose remind the coach that she should get the waiver next year." According to the news paper I would not be far off on this.

By "part of the problem", he simply means all of the officials who didn't stop it before set up the one crew that was put into the position of enforcing the rules. Me? I'd let it go in December and tell the coach he needs to request approval from the state, and that if I see them again I'm going to have to disallow it without that exception.

If I saw them the first time in January, I'm disallowing it and letting the coach know all he has to do is contact the state for the exception and this all goes away. In the day of emails, it would likely be done within a single business day.

By the time you get late in the season, officials are being scrutinized more closely. Once you're in the playoffs, there's no way they can let this go without repercussions.

Of course, having the state supervisor throw you under the bus doesn't help.

Hadn't thought of it (probably because I'm studying for series 7 right now), but I like that better than my idea.

No guarantee that I'd get the right person on the other end of the phone, either. In which case, I'd simply follow the rule.

"Do you have a waiver from the state office?" The answer to that question would guide my next decision.

We had a player in a hijab this year. The coach BROUGHT ME the waiver.

I feel for the officials who are being ridiculed for doing what they're supposed to do -- follow the rules.

Had a player with a medical device (at least thats what i think it was) and the team had a waiver that stipulated it had to be taped over.

Anyone else, like CJP, is just making excuses. If you don't want to do it, that's fine, I don't care, don't justify it with straw men arguments.

Funny you mention the rule book not requiring you to ask for a waiver when it is the rule book that says she can't wear it without one. :/

Being it is a religious thing and not a flamboyant showing off thing, I will not punish a kid because the coach did not know a rule. I agree the state could have handled it differently.

Look, I think it's a stupid rule to be honest, but it's pretty clear and until it's changed, the coach just needs to get a waiver. It's ridiculously easy to get.

If someone didn't tell him all season, those officials did him a disservice. If he was told in previous games and chose not to follow up, that's on him.

Actually, the rule book does not mention a waiver at all. Nice try though.