Theory and Practice

[David B]

Originally posted by zebraman

That may be your interpretation, but it certainly isn't mine.... and I don't think your interpretation reflects the spirit of the rule. The new coach most certainly can call a time-out in my game. To do otherwise is looking for trouble and being overly officious IMHO.

Z

I would have to agree. To deny the AC his rights would put the officials in a tough spot.

What about a disqualified player - who is going to put the substitute in the game?

And who are you going to notify before starting the 30 second clock?

And I'm sure there are many other ramifications that I can't think of right now.

In our area, the AC becomes the HC at that point. As far as the seat belt rule, I would think that would depend on the officials at the game to make that call.

Thanks
David

c

[Back In The Saddle]

Nev, I've thought about this several times since I first saw your assertion that the ac doesn't get hc privileges. Every time, I keep coming back to these thoughts:

• It seems to be at odds with the spirit of the rule, and the general tenor of the rules overall, to deny the field-promoted assistant coach the ability to perform all legitimate coaching activities.
• Denying the ac hc status and privileges further punishes the team. But it can be an uneven punishment. If the home team's head coach gets tossed in the first quarter, and the visiting team's in the fourth quarter, this further punishment is very unequal.
• If I toss the head coach, I still want a head coach. I want that coach to be personally accountable for the actions of bench personnel. If I say he isn't the head coach, whom do I whack if the bench gets out of line?
• The head coach's ability to call time outs has been with us for a while now. If the NFHS really wanted that priviledge to disappear with the ejected head coach, they would have made that clear.
• The rules are generally about what is forbidden, not about what is permitted. Generally speaking, if the rules don't say I can't do something, I can. The rules don't say that the ac can't become the hc.

I really think you're reading something into the rules that was never intended. Just my $0.02

[BktBallRef]

If the head coach became ill and had to leave the game, would you deny the asst. coach who replaced him/her the same allowances that the rules give the head coach?

If you would, you're dead wrong. There's no difference in the two situations.

Who do you inform that a player has fouled out and needs to be replaced?

Who can challenege whether a correctable error occurred, if not the asst. who has assumed the position?

The asst. coach becomes the acting head coach and assumes all responsibilities. But the coaching box is lost because of the Coaches' Rule.

Sorry NVRef but you are 100% wrong on this one!

[AirForceDude]

If you relieve the HC of his/her duties you are promoting the AC because the players must always have adult supervision, right? As the HC, it only makes sense they be allowed to call a TO. On the same line of thinking, if you have an injured player on the court and beckon the coach, you will expect the AC/new HC to attend to the new player; so why not extend the same courtesy when calling a TO?

[Nevadaref]

Originally posted by BktBallRef

Who do you inform that a player has fouled out and needs to be replaced?

Who can challenege whether a correctable error occurred, if not the asst. who has assumed the position?

Tony, David, and thumpferee,
All of you asked these questions so, I'll respond at one time.
If you really look closely, you will notice that 2-8-4 and 4-14-2, which govern a disqualified player, along with 5-8-4, the correctable error request, do NOT have the word HEAD in them. They use "a coach" or "the coach", not HEAD coach. So, an assistant coach can fulfill both of these needs and neither of them poses a problem to my stance.
On the other hand 5-8-3 specifically says "head coach's oral or visual request for a time-out."

Now, Tony does have a great point about the head coach who becomes ill or has to leave during the game due to an emergency. There is certainly no reason to penalize a team in this case. They have done nothing wrong. I can go with the spirit of the rule on that one.
However, when a head coach gets disqualified, it is because he or his team has done something improper. I don't have a problem with his team losing the ability to request a time-out from the bench as a result. Even if it happens in the first quarter as BITS points out. He should have behaved himself.

Upon further review, I think that it can be seen that my interpretation of this is not as unreasonable as some have made it out to be, yet I do realize that it is not the popular belief and I respect all of you who have challenged me to defend it rigorously.

[Camron Rust]

Originally posted by Nevadaref

Tony, David, and thumpferee,
All of you asked these questions so, I'll respond at one time.
If you really look closely, you will notice that 2-8-4 and 4-14-2, which govern a disqualified player, along with 5-8-4, the correctable error request, do NOT have the word HEAD in them. They use "a coach" or "the coach", not HEAD coach. So, an assistant coach can fulfill both of these needs and neither of them poses a problem to my stance.
On the other hand 5-8-3 specifically says "head coach's oral or visual request for a time-out."

Now, Tony does have a great point about the head coach who becomes ill or has to leave during the game due to an emergency. There is certainly no reason to penalize a team in this case. They have done nothing wrong. I can go with the spirit of the rule on that one.
However, when a head coach gets disqualified, it is because he or his team has done something improper. I don't have a problem with his team losing the ability to request a time-out from the bench as a result. Even if it happens in the first quarter as BITS points out. He should have behaved himself.

Upon further review, I think that it can be seen that my interpretation of this is not as unreasonable as some have made it out to be, yet I do realize that it is not the popular belief and I respect all of you who have challenged me to defend it rigorously.

I think, even with this post, this interpretation is outrageous. There is always a coach in charge of the team. Without it, the game is a forfeit. Whichever coach is in charge is the HEAD coach.

Others have posted several points that support this claim. The mention of head coach is to make it clear that only one coach at a time has the priviledge of requesting a time out.

[missinglink]

Originally posted by Nevadaref

Tony, David, and thumpferee,
All of you asked these questions so, I'll respond at one time.
If you really look closely, you will notice that 2-8-4 and 4-14-2, which govern a disqualified player, along with 5-8-4, the correctable error request, do NOT have the word HEAD in them. They use "a coach" or "the coach", not HEAD coach. So, an assistant coach can fulfill both of these needs and neither of them poses a problem to my stance.
On the other hand 5-8-3 specifically says "head coach's oral or visual request for a time-out."

Now, Tony does have a great point about the head coach who becomes ill or has to leave during the game due to an emergency. There is certainly no reason to penalize a team in this case. They have done nothing wrong. I can go with the spirit of the rule on that one.
However, when a head coach gets disqualified, it is because he or his team has done something improper. I don't have a problem with his team losing the ability to request a time-out from the bench as a result. Even if it happens in the first quarter as BITS points out. He should have behaved himself.

Upon further review, I think that it can be seen that my interpretation of this is not as unreasonable as some have made it out to be, yet I do realize that it is not the popular belief and I respect all of you who have challenged me to defend it rigorously.

Nevada Ref; it seems to me the strength of your argument comes from devotion to the exact wording of 5-8-3. However,I believe this rule evolved to its current reading that specified the "head coach" and is designed to prevent an erroneous timeout being granted to an overzealous or emotional assistant coach and never, never intended an expansion to prohibition of a future "coach in charge" requesting a timeout. Secondly, when the head coach is dq'd and there are more than one assistant on the bench, which is pretty typical in varsity games, my next question to the remaining staff is 'which one of you is the head coach?" It looks like this restrictive theory guided the outcome of this game vice the players determining it on their own merits.

[Kelvin green]

Here is my question.
Why make it worse on you than it already is?

First I think that the rule interpretation on calling time-outs is untenuous. Second I think you are looking for more trouble than its worth.

I can see a last minute game situation where this will cause a lot of problems. Unless you have a written rule interp from your State you would be hard pressed to justify how a team lost a game because the adult could not get a time out that may have put the team in a winning position.

If the assistant has a legitimate question are you going to make them sit to ask it? Where would this end?

[BktBallRef]

Originally posted by Nevadaref
If you really look closely, you will notice that 2-8-4 and 4-14-2, which govern a disqualified player, along with 5-8-4, the correctable error request, do NOT have the word HEAD in them. They use "a coach" or "the coach", not HEAD coach. So, an assistant coach can fulfill both of these needs and neither of them poses a problem to my stance.
On the other hand 5-8-3 specifically says "head coach's oral or visual request for a time-out."

You need to dig a little deeper. Take a look at the Coaches' Rule, 10-5-1. Those are all responsibilities of the HEAD coach. You can't deny the asst. an opportunity to handle any of those situations, if the head coach is unavailable for whatever reason. But by your interp, if you're going to deny the TO, then you must also deny him an opportunity to replace a DQ'ed or injured player or to go to the table for an error or mistake.

Now, Tony does have a great point about the head coach who becomes ill or has to leave during the game due to an emergency. There is certainly no reason to penalize a team in this case. They have done nothing wrong. I can go with the spirit of the rule on that one.
However, when a head coach gets disqualified, it is because he or his team has done something improper. I don't have a problem with his team losing the ability to request a time-out from the bench as a result. Even if it happens in the first quarter as BITS points out. He should have behaved himself.

Where does it say that because the head coach did something wrong, versus getting sick, that the asst. coach can't request TO as the HC would be able to? You have never seen anything from the NFHS that supports this ruling. It's just something that you've come up with through your own interpretation.

Upon further review, I think that it can be seen that my interpretation of this is not as unreasonable as some have made it out to be, yet I do realize that it is not the popular belief and I respect all of you who have challenged me to defend it rigorously.

Sorry partner, but it's completely unreasonable. It's simply a bad case of being over-officious, based on your own, unsupported interpretation.

[lrpalmer3]

Originally posted by Kelvin green
First I think that the rule interpretation on calling time-outs is untenuous.

Did you mean tenuous? Thanks though, that adds another word to my vocabulary because I had to look it up.

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Oh my!! What did I missed while being on vacation?

NevedaRef:

All I can say, is you are sooooooooo wrong, but you have already been taken to task over your interpretation. So I will just say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

MTD, Sr.