Strange Case Continued ...

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

As a high school only official, I will interpret this under current NFHS rules and a relevant, but old, Point of Emphasis, that as a veteran official I'm am well aware of and can't ignore, or pretend to ignore, because, as far as I know, it's still valid, has never been ruled invalid, null, or void, and there have been no relevant rule changes, or interpretation changes to invalidate such.

I'd consider it an inexcusable flaw of rules writing to have a point of emphasis apply to any edition it doesn't appear in. Points of emphasis usually take up little space in a rule book, so if you wanted it to go on applying in subsequent editions, what's the point of removing it from them?

To me a POE is just a statement by a supervisory body to the effect, "Our experience in recent time has been that officials have not been administering this the way we intended or expected. Maybe they've even forgotten about it. We don't think there's anything wrong with how we wrote it, such that we could make it more explicit, but please take the following into account...." If that statement no longer appears in subsequent editions, that says to me that the body has at least reconsidered its importance.

There's a long-term problem with emphasis in that you can't emphasize everything, or it's no longer "emphasis". That being the case, the disappearance of a POE means it's at least no longer a priority (to make room for something else). But if writing something as a POE to actually [U]change or amplify the meaning[U] of something substantively, they're usurping the function of a POE, and when it disappears, that different meaning disappears with it. How else is somebody supposed to read an edition of the rules -- as mere suggestions? Hints on play of the game?

Maybe we should start a thread on POEs in the General section, since it would apply to all sports.

Excessively swinging elbows? Yes, elbows were swinging with no feet pivoting, as well as elbows swinging faster than the hips were rotating.

Does Fed use that language, i.e. "swinging elbows", not further defining "swinging"? Because using my non-basketball-official's understanding of swinging an elbow, I wouldn't even see that player as doing that. From football at least, but also ordinary talk, I think of somebody's swinging an elbow as moving it in approximately a horizontal plane, with the hands kept in approximately the same position. If the elbows are held out from the body and hands, I would see swinging the hips or pivoting the feet, not as mitigating factors, but exacerbating ones. I'm familiar with players in basketball abusively clearing out space like that in a circle around them after coming down with a rebound, sometimes seemingly crouched over the ball.

Here I see a player bringing the ball up with both hands from hip height to overhead, and the elbows are held out no farther than normal in doing so. An opponent who'd be barely visible, and certainly not his focus of attention, to the player making that move happens to get his chin in the way of that upward motion.

If Fed wants that player's actions to be a foul in basketball, fine, but if they expect someone to recognize that from the phrase "swinging elbows", then I see a problem.