Its Got No Teeth ...

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Going by nothing but common sense, it seems to me the purpose of a Point of Emphasis is to say, in effect, "We're getting lots of complaints that our officials are neglecting [whatever]. The rule on this is already written the way we want it, there's no need to clarify it, people are just forgetting it in administering the game. So please try to remember it."

Still going by common sense, if points of emphasis kept accumulating, eventually everything would be a "point of emphasis". And when everything is a point of emphasis, nothing is. Because you can emphasize some things only at the expense of attention to others. As magicians know, attention is a limited resource, and if you tell someone to focus on X, they have to take at least some focus off Y. Once you're satisfied enough attention is being paid to X, there's no need to keep emphasizing it, and continuing to do so would be counterproductive to overall administration.

Not being a reader of Fed basketball rules, what I gather from reading here is that Fed may be chronically abusing the concept of a Point of Emphasis, and labeling things as POE that are really not, such as interpretations. (This may be specific to some sports, as I haven't seen such abuse in football.) You can emphasize an interpretation (although the need to do so calls into question whether the underlying rule is written adequately), but the POE itself should not be an interpretation.

I think you're pretty much spot on. I've had many occasions, especially at the college level, where a coach thinks we missed a called and the will add "that's a POE". They are not talking about 2010 or 2015. I think the NFHS is sloppy when it comes to rules, and giving an interpretation and publishing it as a POE is but one example.