0 or 00

[JRutledge]

You can be a rulebook official and call everything by the rule. Or you can be an official that uses a little bit of common sense. The good officials use common sense. We are not going to see a player with "04" in reality. If you do you better be careful how you apply that rule. I worked a game this year where an urban team had blue jerseys for their varsity team. One of the players wore white shorts which were not in lock step with the rules nor the team. We did nothing. I can take a wild guess that the school could not afford the proper jersey for this one player. Of course you could give T this action, but will it be respected by everyone watching.

You can be a rulebook official and apply all the rules to the letter like coaches box, bench decorum, and every bookkeeping violation to the letter, but it will not make you a very popular official. I realize the coach wants to get a break, but I am sure he gets one when he complains about your calls or when he steps out on the court and does not realize it. I know I do not T up coaches for just a foot outside of the box. I just tell them to get back in. Well if the number is wrong as it relates to 0 and 00, I am just going to have them change it and move on. I really think any good official or respected official is going to try to avoid this kind of T for this particular reason. It is totally different if the number was another number. But even then I am not going to give a T just for what is in the official book. I am going to give a T for what information was given to the scorekeeper.

Peace