Lost a shoe...

[Smitty]

Originally posted by Red Neck Ref
As for safety...a guy I work with, his wife broke her ankle a few weeks back when she stepped on her sons shoe that he left beside the couch. Could you explain why you didn't stop play with a potential safety hazard on the floor if someone did get hurt?

Every play is a potential safety hazard. At any given time anyone can step on someone else's foot, or fall down because the floor is slippery, or any number of reasons. A player can still play while missing a shoe. If either team is in the midst of a developing play, it would probably be a bad move to blow the play dead until the play is over. While it's unfortunate that someone broke their ankle from stepping on a shoe once, I'll bet people have broken an ankle simply from stepping on nothing, their ankle turned and whoops. Stuff happens.

Sometimes a player will fall on the floor (no foul involved) in the key during a rebound or other play, and someone might step on him and cause injury to the fallen player or themselves. Should we blow every play dead when a player falls on the floor in the key for the sake of safety? Come on.

[Edited by Smitty on Feb 12th, 2004 at 01:56 PM]