Pregame

[Old School]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

PREGAME CONFERENCE
Coaching Box must be marked. If home coach and/or home management refuse to designate coaching box with tape, the home team will not use a coaching box for that game. However, the visiting team will be allowed a coaching box. Notify Board Secretary or Commissioner the next day.

Hold the phone!

This is a problemsome statement. #1, I don't care if a coaching box is marked or not, there's still a coaching box and in HS, if they are all the way down to the endline. They are out of the box. In collge or hs, if they are standing at the halfcourt line, they are out of the box. I will warn them to get back in the box or closer to your bench. Continuing to disregard my warning will lead to a technical, box or no-box.

#2. If the home team is not going to have a box, then the visiting team must be given the same. In the spirit of fair play, you can not allow one coach to disregard the coaching box and force the visiting team to be within it. That's dumb, that's a problem waiting to explode, imho.

#3. Notify the board is a bunch of crap imo. The board is not going to do anything. The next time you are in that gym, 6 weeks from now. Guess what, same problem. Address the problem right then and there. Either before the game have some tape put down, or if the coaches is causing a problem. Stop the game, yes, stop the game. Get the management to go get some tape, and mark it down. Now, if I got to stop the game to put some tape down because of some out of control coach. I am not going to be a happy camper.

[tjones1]

Hmmm, if the coaching box isn't marked, then there isn't a coaching box for that game, unless they mark one. Simple enough.

[BillyMac]

Connecticut Mechanics: Coaching Box must be marked. If home coach and/or home management refuse to designate coaching box with tape, the home team will not use a coaching box for that game. However, the visiting team will be allowed a coaching box. Notify Board Secretary or Commissioner the next day.

This is not a directive from our local IAABO board, rather, it's a directive from the Connecticut Interschoalstic Athletic Conference (CIAC), the governing body of most interscholastic sports here in Connecticut. In past years, we officials have carried tape with us, and have been instructed by our local IAABO board to mark the coaches boxes. In some cases, coaches, athletic directors, custodians, or site directors, have not allowed us to put down tape, stating that the tape ruins the finish on the floor. We as officials, and the CIAC, have been getting real tired of officials having to tape the boxes, or in some cases, being told that we can't tape the boxes. Under this Connecticut "rule", if needed, officials will designate the coaches box for the visiting team, for example, "Visiting coach, your coaching box will be from this outdated twenty-eight foot hash mark to this chair fourteen feet away".

If this happens once to a coach, I'm sure that he or she will get together with the athletic director and head custodian, and it will not happen again.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Under this Connecticut "rule", if needed, officials will designate the coaches box for the visiting team, for example, "Visiting coach, your coaching box will be from this outdated twenty-eight foot hash mark to this chair fourteen feet away".

Why is it "outdated", Willie? The 28' line is currently being used in NFHS rule 1-13-2 to define the parameters of the coaching box.

[BillyMac]

Jurassic Referee:

Please check out the Court Diagram on page seven of the NFHS Basketball Rule Book. Notice that there are no twenty-eight foot hash marks in the diagram. Also check out Rule 1-13-2 that defines the coaching box. The term "hash mark" is not mentioned at all in that rule citation.

I'm not sure, I didn't start keeping my old rule books until just a few years ago, but I believe that the hash marks and the closely guarded midcourt forecourt rule associated with them, were changed in 1987.

I'm guessing that about one-quarter of the seventy high schools that our local IAABO board services still have the outdated twenty-eight foot hash marks. The remaining three-quarters of the high schools that our local board services are either brand new schools, or have brand new gymnasiuims, or have had their gymnasium floors recently repainted and refinished and do not have the outdated hash marks.

As a former interscholastic coach, I was sorry to see the hash marks dissappear. I would instruct my players to fill the lanes on the fast break, running wide enough to touch the hash marks, in filling the outside lanes.

[Mountaineer]

Originally Posted by Old School

Hold the phone!

This is a problemsome statement. #1, I don't care if a coaching box is marked or not, there's still a coaching box and in HS, if they are all the way down to the endline. They are out of the box. In collge or hs, if they are standing at the halfcourt line, they are out of the box. I will warn them to get back in the box or closer to your bench. Continuing to disregard my warning will lead to a technical, box or no-box.

#2. If the home team is not going to have a box, then the visiting team must be given the same. In the spirit of fair play, you can not allow one coach to disregard the coaching box and force the visiting team to be within it. That's dumb, that's a problem waiting to explode, imho.

#3. Notify the board is a bunch of crap imo. The board is not going to do anything. The next time you are in that gym, 6 weeks from now. Guess what, same problem. Address the problem right then and there. Either before the game have some tape put down, or if the coaches is causing a problem. Stop the game, yes, stop the game. Get the management to go get some tape, and mark it down. Now, if I got to stop the game to put some tape down because of some out of control coach. I am not going to be a happy camper.

Isn't the coaching box optional? In WV if there's no coaching box marked, there's no coaching box - period. If you are observed in WV and you do not enforce the coaching box you can be suspended immediately! I have found that if you come out for pregame (or better yet, if you are exchanging pleasantries with the home coach during the JV game) and notice no box - all it takes is the statement "So coach, we aren't using a coaching box tonight?" They will grab some tape and get one down rather quickly.

We are also instructed to notify the WVSSAC the next day if there's not a box down. That's not crap. Besides, if I come back in 6 weeks and it's still not down, I'll say something again. Personally, if they are coaching their team, I don't give a rat's A$$ where they stand. If I notice, I'll put them back in the box - now if they are trying to officiate the game I do take note of where they are standing!