Held Ball Signal

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by bucky

I never really understood the stop clock signal (open hand in air). What is the purpose? And if the response if "to stop the clock" well then what is the purpose of the whistle? The whistle is enough.

Whistles occasionally failed to sound? (The motivation for the inventor of the Fox 40)

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Going back to the ancient days of NFHS (or whatever) mechanics, there must have been a pretty good reason for the three stop the clock signals (fouls, violations, held (jump balls back then) balls). I wonder what that reason was? Maybe, the more information communicated the better?

My guess is that the initial signal set didn't necessarily indicate the nature of the infraction with a 2nd signal but that the fist/open hand was the entire signal.