Fashion Police . . . with a Vengeance

[Freddy]

"The statement, 'I am not the uniform police' is correct. However, officials are hired to enforce the rules of the game. Uniform, equipment, and apparel are all included in the rules book and must be enforced... Consistency among the officials in enforcement of these areas will provide for a unified statement to coaches. When some officials choose not to enforce the rules, they are only hurting the profession and setting up the next crew for criticism from the coaches, when, in fact, the officials who did not enforce the rules are the ones who deserve the criticism." (NFHS 2017-19 Basketball Officials Manual Point of Emphasis, p.4.)

Hopefully the lessons learned from this Fashion Police bust at this state cross country meet yesterday bubbles up to positively affect the coaches and officials of other sports, especially basketball:

How Shirts DQ'ed an Entire Cross Country Teaml

Note how the pre-season POE's and online rules meeting slides and the review questions -- all mandatory for all cross country coaches in the state -- all refute the blame game that the coach and many supporters of the featured team have chosen to play.

[Rich]

Where is the coach in all this? He should know the damned rules and should be front and center to take the blame.


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[Freddy]

Originally Posted by Rich

Where is the coach in all this? He should know the damned rules and should be front and center to take the blame.

Sadly, as the quotes in the article attest, quite the opposite. Instead, a teachable moment for impressionable minds on how to play the "Blame Game" card. Ugh.

[BillyMac]

Lots of finger pointing here.

The officials at meets previous to this for not knowing, or not enforcing uniform rules.

The officials at the start of this meet for not knowing, or not enforcing uniform rules, especially after the warmups were removed (preventative officiating).

But the main fault goes to the coaches for not knowing, or not communicating uniform rules to their athletes. This is where the buck stops. If anyone wants to put the blame for this specific incident where it belongs, it's on the coaches.

No fingers should be pointed at the officials at the end of this meet for enforcing the uniform rules as written. They are not at all at fault here.

Don't blame the athletes, they were just doing what the adults told them to do. It's too bad that they had to take the brunt of the punishment.

[Scrapper1]

Great article.

I love this from the coach:

Undergarment formalities should never disqualify a team from running at the State Meet.

He's 100% correct. It should never happen. Because the coach and AD should ensure that the team is properly dressed.

[johnny d]

I ran XC in high school and my daughter runs now. At every state meet, which in our state includes regionals, sectionals, and the state meet, an official personally comes and inspects what each runner from every team is wearing before the meet starts and gives them approval or tells them what they have to change. It was the same way 25 years ago when I ran in the same meets. The same thing should have happened in this meet. In fact, an official inspected this team and failed to tell them their undershirts were illegal. While the coach of said team should know the rules, this was clearly a failure on the part of the official to warn the team that they were not in compliance with the rule. Since they were not properly warned by the meet official, it is improper and against the rules to disqualify them as well.