Time out positions - two man crew

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Rich Fronheiser

I think IAABO has it right, BTW. This is the old NFHS mechanic, if I remember correctly.

I'm always proactive in getting this information to an assistant during a timeout, but it wold be a lot easier to simply put an official there and let the other official notify the benches of the first horn, etc.

Lemme throw this out there, Rich, being a tad grumpy this a.m.........as usual.

Why don't we go back to the real old mechanic? Use the warning horns for what they're damnwell supposed to be ----> a warning horn. All the current mechanic is doing is shifting the onus onto the officials and away from where it should be-the benches. They can hear the horns; all they do now is ignore them until us babysitters go and ask them if they feel like playing yet. Everybody, and I mean everybody, ignores the first horn. And then if you do follow the resuming-play procedure, they'll whine at you, saying that they didn't hear your warning. Every TO now turns out to be 10-15 seconds longer than what they should be. Way back, we used to whistle and say "Let's go" at the first horn, and then whistle at the second horn, give 'em a few(2-3) seconds to get moving, and if they didn't start out, we'd either put the ball down or hand it to the thrower- depending on which team felt like ignoring us. Of course, if they did move we'd give them a little time to get into position. The coaches knew that we were gonna do this, so they didn't try to pretend that we don't exist- like they do now.

The rule book says that at the first warning horn "the players shall prepare to be ready to resume play". Somehow, over the passage of time, this requirement has shifted to the final horn instead and we allow it.

Thoughts anybody?