Article on ESPN.com

[mj]

It is about cross country but it's somewhat related to us...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/colum...ray&id=1899682

[OverAndBack]

Guys were talking about that tonight at our association meeting. Technically correct, but an asshat call that's going to get a lot of negative publicity.

Those things can be taken off, right? They're not like welded shut so you can't take them off, right? (I've only seen people with yellow bands around their wrists, I didn't know what they were - my mom had a POW bracelet during the Vietnam era, I didn't know if this was a newfangled version of that.)

I'm going to make it a point in pregame just to say "Let's avoid all the problems right here and now - the rules say they have to come off, let's take them off and be done with it."

[zebraman]

The article says that the coaches were told on at least two occasions that jewelry was not allowed.

The athletes were then told at the starting line that no jewelry was allowed.

Then the coaches whine afterwards because, "it's just a rubber band."

The coaches and administrators need to pay attention to detail and make sure this doesn't happen instead of ignoring it and then blaming everyone but themselves afterwards.

Z

[ChuckElias]

Originally posted by zebraman
The article says that the coaches were told on at least two occasions that jewelry was not allowed.

The athletes were then told at the starting line that no jewelry was allowed.

SportsCenter said this morning that the runners were allowed to wear watches, presumably so they could keep track of their pace.

So what's the rationale?

[zebraman]

Originally posted by ChuckElias

SportsCenter said this morning that the runners were allowed to wear watches, presumably so they could keep track of their pace.

So what's the rationale?

I guess because the watches serve a purpose and the bands are "just jewelry." ??? I doubt that we're going to get the whole complete story from sound bytes. The point is that it was preventable and forwarned. I don't do cross country (race official? race referee), but it sounds like there was plenty of warning and the coaches/administrators chose to ignore it and then go into blame mode.

Z

[Back In The Saddle]

Call me stupid, but until I read the article I didn't connect the yellow bands with jewelry. When I think jewelry I think rings, necklaces, earrings, even bobby pins. You know, metal stuff. If I were a coach, it would have come as a surprise to me too. And if there were so many blatant offenders, it would have been good preventive officiating for one of these officials to have said to a coach or runner, "hey, you know that has to come off, don't you?" Really, which of us doesn't routinely give a quick once-over to all ten starters before the jump ball goes up. Correct by rule, but pretty sorry officiating, if you ask me.

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by Back In The Saddle
Call me stupid, but until I read the article I didn't connect the yellow bands with jewelry. When I think jewelry I think rings, necklaces, earrings, even bobby pins. You know, metal stuff. If I were a coach, it would have come as a surprise to me too. And if there were so many blatant offenders, it would have been good preventive officiating for one of these officials to have said to a coach or runner, "hey, you know that has to come off, don't you?"

I do know in all the sports I work, these things are not allowed. They are considered jewelry. It does not have to be metal to be ruled illegal. I know that cross country is not the same thing as the sports I work, but those are the rules.

Originally posted by Back In The Saddle
Really, which of us doesn't routinely give a quick once-over to all ten starters before the jump ball goes up. Correct by rule, but pretty sorry officiating, if you ask me.

I do. I do not because I want to be over-officious; I want to prevent myself from liability. I know if someone gets cut or gets injured (like a finger) because we could have told them to take it off, I do not want to be held responsible. Those are the rules. It might not make total sense, but those are the rules. And if you are trying to suggest that you would not in a basketball setting or even football for example take action, I hope you have a lot of money to just give to a lawyer for your "negligence." You might disagree, but there is a reason these things are not allowed.

Peace

[Kelvin green]

From the NCAA rules

Art. 1. The referee shall not permit any player to wear equipment that in his or her judgment is dangerous to other players.
Art. 5. Equipment that could cut or cause an injury to another player shall be
prohibited, without respect to whether the equipment is hard. Excessively
long fingernails shall be prohibited.
Art. 6. Equipment used shall be appropriate for basketball.
Art. 7. Head decorations, head wear and jewelry are illegal. Headbands no wider than 2 inches made of non-abrasive, unadorned (except for the manufacturerÂ’s
logo, which shall meet the size restrictions of Rule 3-6), singlecolorcloth, elastic, fiber, soft leather, pliable plastic or rubber shall be legal.

FROM PIAA website in 2002 This was the official interp from back the from NFHS as well

RUBBER BANDS
Rubber bands are legal to wear to control the hair. They
are illegal as decorative items (i.e. wearing on the wrist,
arms, etc.).

As far as I am concerned the bands create a danger that is not normally part of playing ball. I believe that allowing players to wear them is imprudent. The Xcountry guys should have told them to take them off before they raced..and I am not sure they would be too terribly dangerous in Xcountry but in Basketball and Football, Volleyball, etc they need to be left at the sideline

[JRutledge]

Kevin,

It is possible that the officials did not see the wrist band until the race was over. I do not know, but it is possible.

A D1 Umpire told me once, "The best way to change a rule is to enforce it." If the people do not like this rule, then they will change it. It might not seem fair, but we cannot make provisions for one type of item and not another. Watches can be worn because they serve a purpose.

I always find it funny when coaches never read the rulebooks and are surprised when a rule (they never read) is enforced. Maybe those coaches will do their best to change the rules or adhere to them the next time.

Peace

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally posted by JRutledge

I do. I do not because I want to be over-officious; I want to prevent myself from liability. I know if someone gets cut or gets injured (like a finger) because we could have told them to take it off, I do not want to be held responsible. Those are the rules. It might not make total sense, but those are the rules. And if you are trying to suggest that you would not in a basketball setting or even football for example take action, I hope you have a lot of money to just give to a lawyer for your "negligence." You might disagree, but there is a reason these things are not allowed.

Peace

Perhaps you have misunderstood me. I mention the once-over as an example of something we all do, myself included. For very good reason, as you have pointed out.

The disqualification of the athletes in this story was, apparently, correct by rule. It seems to me, however, that the officials in this event could--and should--have done a lot more to prevent this debacle.

[oc]

I coach CC and from my experience it isn't practical to check all the kids before the race. BBall games have 10 players at at time. CC races can have a 100 kids or more in the same race. In my league after one race finishes we start the next race ASAP. Line the kids up and go. There isn't time to check for jewelry. The coaches know the rule, and (according to the article) both the coaches and the runners were warned about the rule. What's left? Enforce the rule.

Now that being said my league would have dealt with it much differently. I live overseas in Japan and although we are supposed to follow FED rules-we ignore some of them like jewelry. I wish we followed it more-but not all the other coaches agree so whatever. (We don't have hired officials for CC meets. The coaches run the meet together.)

bball is different. We follow FED pretty much all the way.

If at our end of season race with all the teams in Asia, if the race coordinator decides to follow FED rules exactly, warns us of that, sends an email 2 days before the race saying wristbands can not be worn, warns the kids at the start-and then DQ's a runner, that is the coach/runners fault-not the administrators.




[Edited by oc on Oct 14th, 2004 at 01:17 AM]

[oc]

update-decision overturned


http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories...6698&ran=96329

Decision reversed on cancer-support wristbands
By PAUL WHITE, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 13, 2004
Last updated: 1:34 PM



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background: More than two dozen runners disqualified

VIRGINIA BEACH — Stung by criticism at home and across the country, the Beach District has reversed its decision to disqualify high school cross country runners for wearing Lance Armstrong LiveStrong wristbands.


''I made this decision because, in all fairness, adequate prior notice had not been given to the participants,Â’Â’ Bruce Biehl , Kellam High School Â’s principal and the chairman of Beach District cross country, said in a statement released Tuesday.

More than 20 runners were declared ineligible last Wednesday in a meet at the Sportsplex for wearing the popular LiveStrong bands, sold for $1 apiece. Proceeds go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation , which provides practical information to cancer survivors.

Biehl said the meet results are being re-tallied and will be announced today. Runners also will be allowed to wear the wristbands for the rest of the district cross country season, he said.

Biehl added that clarification will be sought on wearing the bands during region and state competition.

Many of the runners said they were unaware that the bands were classified as jewelry and would have taken them off had they known they risked disqualification by continuing to wear them.

''Our kids certainly werenÂ’t wearing them to be defiant,Â’Â’ said Mike Nestor , the coach at Ocean Lakes High . ''WeÂ’re kind of in awe of everything thatÂ’s happened.Â’Â’

A flood of e-mails protesting the decision followed SaturdayÂ’s Virginian-Pilot story detailing the Beach divisionÂ’s action. The move also was lampooned nationally on ESPN Â’s ''SportsCenterÂ’Â’ and in a piece by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ray Ratto .

''I realize the earlier decision resonated very negatively among the schools and athletes involved, as well as within the community at large,Â’Â’ BiehlÂ’s statement said.

The decision to disqualify the runners, Biehl said, was in keeping with a recently drafted National Federation of State High School Associations ruling classifying the band as jewelry.

But Biehl acknowledged that runners and coaches werenÂ’t given a proper heads-up. The Virginia High School League circulated the new policy to schools on Oct. 4 , two days before the meet.

''I have learned a valuable lesson from the perspective of 20/20 hindsight,Â’Â’ Biehl said in his statement. ''Gray areas will often surface when competition and kids are involved. Those of us who wear the title 'officialÂ’ need to work all the harder to strike the right balance between flexibility and commitment to long-standing rules.Â’Â’

Nestor said the controversy actually has served as a learning tool for his athletes.

''Sometimes you wear that band but forget what itÂ’s really for,Â’Â’ Nestor said. ''IÂ’ve received e-mails from all over the country from cancer survivors voicing their support. Through their stories, weÂ’ve learned what an inspiration that band really is.Â’Â’

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally posted by oc
I coach CC and from my experience it isn't practical to check all the kids before the race. BBall games have 10 players at at time. CC races can have a 100 kids or more in the same race. In my league after one race finishes we start the next race ASAP. Line the kids up and go. There isn't time to check for jewelry. The coaches know the rule, and (according to the article) both the coaches and the runners were warned about the rule. What's left? Enforce the rule.

26. There were 26 runners disqualified. The article is short on details, so let's just take a wild, hypothetical stab at the numbers. Say we have just one race with 100 runners. That's roughly 25 percent of the participants. Say we have five races of 100 runners. That's still five percent.

Perhaps between five and 25 percent of the participants were each wearing those bright yellow bracelets that catch my eye every day of the week. It seems that they were obvious enough to somebody somewhere that 26 individual competitors could be identified and disqualified.

You make a valid point about basketball. And I can't say that even in basketball--where I'm on a relatively small floor, with a small number of players, for an hour or more--that I catch everything. But if an evaluator were to observe me missing five to 25 percent of the players wearing jewelry, I may as well cancel my phone service because the assigners will simply stop calling.

BTW, I have no qualms with your conclusion. There was nothing left; they enforced the rule as written. But really, if not a single official noticed this large number of participants wearing the bands in time to say something to the kids or coaches--at any point during the entire meet--I can only draw one conclusion about the officiating. The officials were just not paying enough attention.

Let me say this as well, I opined earlier that it had never occured to me to consider these bands jewelry (by which I did not mean to imply that I didn't consider them a safety issue). Apparently several coaches and 26 runners didn't consider them jewelry either, so much so that there didn't appear to be any "what about yellow bands?" type questions asked. Nor does it appear that any specific mention of them was made by the race officials in any of these pre-race meetings. Even though the bands have been popular for a while now.

Perhaps they should be judged guilty on two counts of negligence for not practicing preventive officiating.

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally posted by oc
update-decision overturned

Okay, they're out of my dog house now

[ref18]

I wear a LIVESTRONG bracelet, and I take it off when I referee, there is no reason why these people could not have taken it off to participate. In a basketball game I would consider it jewlery, and I have had players remove them.

They said no jewlery, and I wouldn't know how other to classify these bracelets.

[Edited by ref18 on Oct 14th, 2004 at 08:26 AM]