Protect the *Star Player ???

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

I have to get back into this thread on a more serious note.

The first thing I have to say, is that officials have no business protecting a star player from fouling out of a game. That is not the job of the game officials.

Now, to illustrate how gray this issue is, let me relate a situation that Daryl and I had just a few years back in an AAU Girls' (13U) National Championship tournament game.

We had a consolation bracket game on the last day of the tournament. Team B had started the tournament with 9 girls' but was down to only six players when it met Team A for the last game of the tournament for both teams. The game was a mis-match from the beginning and Daryl and I only called the obvious fouls. And still with three minutes left in the game, Team A was leading by sixty points. Team A had stopped pressing after the first four minutes of the game and would have played the younger siblings of its players if it could have done so. By now yet Team B was done to only five players because one player had fouled out. Of the remaining five players, four had four fouls apiece and one player had none. Needless to say that any remaining fouls committed by a player from Team B as assessed to the player with no fouls. Head Coach A never complained fortunately we managed the last three minutes of the game with only two fouls against Team B.

MTD, Sr.