we changed the timeout rule

[Mark Padgett]

Last night, our Board for our local rec league had it's monthly meeting. Our rules committee recommended we change the timeout rule and go back to the old rule that only players on the floor may request timeouts. This recommendation came out of strong comments made by our refs at the conclusion of last season.

Many of our officials are extremely inexperienced. In fact, 90% of them have 2 years or less. Although we have covered only grades 3-8 (we are finally adding HS this year, since we got the gym space), it is still difficult to expect inexperienced officials to administer the current rule properly. We all know the problems inherent in the current rule and have discussed it many times on this board.

I think this modification will result in less contact being missed during games since the attention of the officials will not be diverted from the court and that we will have vastly fewer instances of improper timeouts being called.

I would be curious to know if there are any other rec leagues out there who have made similar decisions on modifying (especially recent) NF rules. Thanks guys.