I was stretching before a game last year where I pulled my foot behind me and it ended up between a cheerleader's legs. Needless to say she was pretty embarrassed :o. I learned to look behind me before stretching on the court.

I have also heard from different officials that the cheerleaders must not be underneath the basket. It sounds like they are not allowed anywhere on the endline (if they are standing).

I try to do my stretching in the locker room...in fact, I believe the NFHS Officials Manual suggests not to do stretching on the court.

Strectching on the court. Hmmmm...I don't think so.

I try to stretch before I'm on the court but sometimes I'll work out some kinks.

The Spirit manual says they cant be along the end line between the freethrow lane extended. That is the only restriction in their manual.

And yeah, warm up in the locker room. I hate seeing officials stretching on the court. Looks bad. But some jurisdictions seem to care more than others. I've seen varsity officials do it a bit here where in my old jurisdiction there is no way taht would ever have been tolerated.

All you know on Earth and all you need to know
 

All you know on Earth and all you need to know, I would suggest, is that the idea is to get a fair game. If the cheerleaders are interfering with that - say by getting in your way - you have the authority (you ARE a member of the Rule 2.3 Club, aren't you?) to have the site manager take care of the site.

That being said, cajoling cheerleaders can work, too.

"You can always tell a cheerleader, but you can't tell them much."

I have never had a problem with cheerleaders not responding to my request (not since high school anyway!), but that was a different request then ! Anyway, if you compliment them first, they will do anything for you. Example: "You girls are doing a good job, but I hope I don't accidentally run over one of you. You might want to take a couple steps back....thanks a lot....let's see a pyramid or some flips later....".... main thing is: just be friendly, but let them know who the boss is on the court in a nice non-threatening way.... they will respond favorably 99.9% of the time.

Cheerleaders last night were no problem. But I heard a cheer that made me laugh.

Girls Varsity.

I call a travel on a girl right in front of the opposing cheerleaders. Just as I'm about to bounce the ball to the thrower-in I hear this cheer from the sideline: "You travel, you travel, you walkkkkk too much!" I couldn't help but laugh.

In the 2nd half I called another travel. As I'm coming back as the new lead the cheerleaders are doing the same cheer, except this time while singing the "you travel" verse they are doing the traveling mechanic, and then for the "you walkkkk too much!" verse they march in step up the sideline.

But I guess karma came back to bite them in the butt, b/c the cheerleaders' team lost by 3 points and committed two travelling violations in the last minute of the game.

There are a couple of smaller gyms where there is no room for the cheerleaders except along the baseline. I generally try to warn them that I'm alot bigger than they are (they're cheerleaders, I need to explain it:D ) and I won't be the one hurt if I run into them. One game, during a fastbreak, I was running down the sideline looking over my shoulder and steamrolled one girl. Thank the Lord she wasn't seriously hurt. They stayed out of my way after that.

NCAA rules, court diagram shows a minimum 3 ft of unobstructed space along the sidelines (preferred 10 ft) and 6 ft along the end lines.

This is the same line I use when I foresee a potential problem. I'm 6' and 200+, so when I tell them it won't be me getting hurt, they tend to believe me.

I worked a gym just a couple nights ago that had no room on the sidelines for the cheerleaders and on the end lines there was 3 to 4 feet from baseline to wall.

I told the girls look you can do your thing but if you see me come running, im getting a little older I still run well but I dont stop very well so be heads up! :eek:

So, on occasion through out the game when a fast break would develop as I am running down to the base line I can her the cheerleaders, " Look out here he comes" :D I had to chuckle every time.

I usually just back out when I am on the baseline and they will move. I actually ran into one last month and both of us hit the pads on the wall. After that, no problem with them.

I just tell them to move back for me because I step on one cheerleader every year, and I haven't so far, so let's not have it happen tonight.