Should a state association accomodate a religious school for the playoffs?
 

You're opening a pretty big worm of cans if you accomodate the school in this instance, IMHO.

Wow!!. There may be a chance

The NCAA specifically accomodates BYU by placing them in a bracket which plays on Thursday and Saturday, not Friday and Sunday in the basketball tournaments.

Interesting....wonder what he meant by that

What the school is asking for here is not a reasonable accommodation. In BYU's case, the only time it becomes even remotely problematic is for the NCAA basketball tournament. Further, BYU wants Sunday's off. If they wanted Saturday's off and made the final four, I can assure you the NCAA wouldn't be accommodating.

Do you believe that the NCAA makes this accomodation for BYU only in basketball, but not in the tournaments for other sports?

Does Oregon play games on Sunday? Probably not. They are accommodating the traditional Sabbath for most Christians if they do not. If Oregon tried to schedule games on Sunday you would see more protests than what you see here. I don't think it would be that hard for Oregon to be flexible in this situation, but that is just my opinion.

I also applaud the school for forfeiting games in prior years. It is rare to see someone stand up for their religious beliefs in the sports world. I may not agree with another's religious belief, but I will support them in their cause if I feel they are being treated unfairly because of their beliefs. In this case, I feel it would not be that hard to reschedule a game. I would applaud the opponent even more if they would not take the forfeit win

they actually go further than that....Thursday Saturday brackets sometimes feed Friday, Sunday.. A couple years ago, it was mentioned that the NCAA was set to move them to another "pod" if they advanced to avoid the Sunday thing. I personally think it is wrong to make the accomodations, other Christians also observe the Sabbath on Sunday, Notre Dame doesn't hesitate to play on Sunday in tournaments. I also would be willing to bet that you can find plenty of people playing basketball in Provo on Sunday...this isn't "working" on the Sabbath, it is playing....

This was done because the committee overlooked the fact BYU was scheduled to play on a Sunday if they won the first round that year. BYU lost and it was not an issue.

Peace

yep
 

Yep JRut hit it on the head.....I just hate that they do it...In the name of discrimination/persectution it is just as damaging to make accomodations for one group over the interests of another in my opinion.

BYU's policy is not to participate in ANY sporting event that takes place on a Sunday. In general the NCAA will make accomodations for this policy, but in the event that the NCAA will not accomodate them, BYU will forfeit the contest rather than play on Sunday.

I remember a few years ago, one of the teams had a chance to go to a national championship which would take place on a Sunday and the NCAA agreed to move the contest from Sunday to Monday to accomdate them if they made it that far.

Nobody observes the Sabbath on Sunday. The Sabbath, by definition, is the last day of the week when God rested after creation. It's Saturday, specifically sunset Friday through sunset Saturday.

Christians who "rest" on Sunday observe "the Lord's day" because it's the day that Jesus rose from the dead.

You can interpret "Keeping the Sabbath day holy" in any way you choose. The way that the leadership of the school (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) interprets it is to not participate in athletic contests on Sundays. If individuals in Provo (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) want to play on Sundays, that is their choice.

If rescheduling doesn't place a hardship on someone, what's the big deal? Just because Notre Dame (or BC, or Oral Roberts, etc.) doesn't reschedule doesn't mean BYU doesn't believe more strongly in this particular issue.
Again, if accomodating doesn't impose a real hardship on the other parties, I don't see a problem with it.

Semantics. This is the Jewish (as well as some Christian sects', such as Seventh Day Adventists) definition. It's probably more correct, historically. However, many Christians do observe the Sabbath on Sunday as a matter of practice. That's why many businesses are closed (Hobby Lobby and Chick Filet for example), most high school associations don't play games on Sundays, and some states prohibit alcohol sales on Sunday.
While most don't observe this as a hard and fast rule, many do.

Where is playing basketball, on your terms, a "right"? Isn't basketball still an extracirricular activity? If children are forced to go to school, then they shouldn't also be forced to do things in school contrary to their established religion. But children, and schools, are not forced to play basketball. It is a voluntary activity, so the participants should be bound by the rules of the activity. Should the OSAA, and the NCAA, make a reasonable attempt to accommodate the schools involved? Sure. Should they be forced to in court? Of course not.

The problem is, they already make a lot of accomodations as it is. Why don't they play on Sunday now? Try scheduling hs basketball games on sunday and see what happens. Some states may do this already, I don't know, but I know the two I'm familiar with don't and you'd see major bellyaching if they tried to change that.
In a sense, they're already making religious accomodation for the majority.

I respectfully disagree. It's a matter of definition. If I say, "I'm a bachelor" and you say, "No, you're not. You're married," I can't say, "Ah, that's just semantics". This is the same thing. The Sabbath is Saturday, the last day of the week because that's when God rested. That's the definition of "Sabbath". You can't just say it's Sunday because that's when Christians go to church.

No, they don't. They observe the Lord's Day on Sunday to commemorate Jesus' resurrection.

You can't open presents on October 31st and call it Christmas. You can open presents on October 31st, sure. But that doesn't make it Christmas. And you can rest on Sunday. But that doesn't make it the Sabbath.

How much of it is real religion, and how much is societal? Maybe that is the origin, but I would think many people consider Sunday a normal day off, not a religious day off.

Actually, I would think many of the concerns regarding tournaments is much more logistical than anything else. Many of these tournaments have been planned out months in advance - venues rented, hotel rooms reserved, staff hired, and so on. What if the venue being used is already booked for a concert on Sunday? What if half the concession stand workers can't change their schedules and be there on Sunday instead of Saturday? There are a lot of details involved, which would make it hard to just change a date of a game to accomodate one or two possible participants.

And a large majority of the people belly-aching about that possible change would not be doing so out of religious principles, but out of "that's the way it's always been ,why are you changing it" principles...

As others have said, make the accomodations if it isn't a hardship on others, but don't trample on someone else in order to serve the athletes at Portland Adventist or Portland Episcopal or Central Catholic or Damascus Christian or etc., etc...can I see moving the State Championship game from 8:00 Saturday until 5:00 and then playing the possible Portland Adventist consolation game at 8:00?? Sure...but telling a team we will postpone Saturday's Championship game until Sunday or Monday to accomodate Portland Adventist, thus causing the other team to have to spend more nights in a hotel and spend more $$$ - no way. That's not right...

You're making a theological distinction that I happen to agree with. However, if you asked which day is the Sabbath, many (I'd venture to say most) Christians would answer "Sunday." Christmas is only 12-25 because that's when most people celebrate. If we wanted to change it to 10-31 and got people to sign on, we absolutely would call it that.
Again, you're making a theological distinction I happen to agree with. However, as it pertains to popular usage....
True enough, but it doesn't mean these folks aren't observing the Sabbath that way. How often have you opened Christmas presents on 12-24? My family has gotten together the first week of January on occasion to celebrate Christmas (to include opening presents).
There are, most years, two official Easter Sundays. Which one is correct? Do we really know which day of the week God rested? No, of course not.

Just to keep this (slightly) connected to basketball. . .

And if you asked what the signal for "over the back" is, many if not most coaches would give you the Frankenstein (or whatever it was called recently).

The fact that most Christians don't really understand the details of their religion is no reason to perpetuate the incorrect "normal usage".

Is that where He rolls the rock away from inside his cave on Easter Monday? And He steps outside to the awe and amazement of the gathered masses? And if He then sees his shadow, we get six more weeks of winter?

Huh, huh?

This is true. I understand there are also a couple of other schools like that too. But perhaps you don't hear about them because they're not quite as successful? :D

Rise and shout!

I really hope you like the smell of brimstone :eek:

At his age, anything that promises he'll be warm forever, is a good thing :cool:

Sure you can because Oct 31 = Dec 25

Let's keep the rest of the religious stuff off the board, lest this turn into a discussion similar to those surrounding race. Suffice it to say that, for whatever reason, BYU (and other institutions / states, etc.) chooses not to play on Sundays.

Ummm, no it doesn't. :confused:

I have no problem with that, Bob. I was not intending to do anything other than point out the incorrect usage of the word "Sabboth". I didn't mean to get into religion at all, just linguistics.

For a moment, I was getting caught up in connecting the theological debate over the rightful Sabbath Day with the basketball issue at hand. Then I realized this is off topic because the group that wants the accomodation is actually one of the few who recognize the Sabbath as Saturday rather than Sunday.

Uhmmm yes it does. Go find a calculator. ;)

It's junior high calculator humor.

We're all going to '7734'

We have a pending case in Michigan that is very similar. We have a Jewish school that wants the MHSAA to reschedule any post-season contests it would play in if they happen from Sunday Friday to Sundown Saturday. The MHSAA said no and when the school tried to alter its membership resolution the following year, the school sued the MHSAA and got an injunction allowing them to stay a member until a decision is made.

Personally, I feel that if a school wants to put its relgious values as a priority above everything else, fine, but don't expect the public to feel obliged to go along with it.

Also, we have a college in theassociation I work with that is 7 Day Adventist. They do not play form Sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday either. What they have done the past two years at our volleyball tournament is play through Friday afternoon, and then let the other team they play advance in their place, regardless the score. They have asked for consideration in moving the tournament from Thursday-Saturday to Wednesday-Friday, but the majority of schools don't want to miss an additional day of class time, so the status quo remains.

Actually, it's to do with bases:

31 in Octal (base 8 number scheme) is the same number as 25 in Decimal (base 10 number scheme). So 25 Dec. = 31 Oct.

This article doesn't quote the law that is being interpreted, so it's hard to predict which way the court will rule.

The law prohibits religious discrimination in education. The question is whether not accomodating a religious school amounts to discrimination. It appears that the answer is no, but that a reasonable attempt must be made to accomodate them. Making accomodations for other reasons, but not for religious reasons, clearly seems to be discriminatory.

It appears to me that the court will rule that the association must make an attempt to accomodate and not dismiss the accomodation out of hand. This still leaves the final decision to the association but doesn't leave the religious schools totally in the lurch.

Why the double standard bob? Discussions about religion are allowed, but not race? What gives?

Stop with the race crap, for God's sake!!! Would you? What is your obsession with discussion of race? Just stop it.

It's NOT a double standard. Bob asked me to stop talking about religion, which I did, because it falls into the same category as most of racial debates. They're off-topic and can quickly degenerate.

None of thes have to degenerate if people would just act civilly.

Can't believe what I am reading
 

There is only one thing in the article I couldn't believe:

Charles Hinkle, arguing the case on behalf of the students and the American Civil Liberties Union, told the justices that it is the OSAA's obligation to meet the religious needs of students.

The ACLU is defending religion? I never thought I would see this day.

Agreed. But, the chances of that happening are roughly the same as Jon Diebler, Elvis and Yeti being the officials on the NCAA championship game.

And, no, I don't happen to know the race of two of the three.

Yabut. If a frog had wings.... Pick your cliche. That's why we don't generally talk about race, religion, or politics here. If you want to have a serious discussion about race issues in America, good for you. I'm all for it. This just isn't the place for it.

I didn't post this to get into a discussion on the relative merits of religion. I posted it because it is a relevant issue concerning HS basketball in my state and I wanted to see if other states had this issue and if so, how they handle it. Also, I thought we could discuss this from a referee's perspective - strictly as to how it pertains to scheduling, etc.

I believe the thrust is whether it's reasonable. Is rescheduling the game an undue hardship (for the scheduler, host school, teams, fans, etc.) Is this cost prohibitive? Would this result in a team possibly having to play two days in a row, whereas their competition would possibly have a day in between games and more time to prepare (giving them an advantage)? How difficult is it to switch the game day and possibly time (opening/closing the facility; site management; table crew; officials, concessions, etc).

Living up in the north country myself, I've seen various tourney games this year rescheduled because of ice/snow...my guess is the court will take a look at those types of situations and ask why they can do it for snow but not for religious affiliation.

Snow: Safety; affects everyone.

My take is that the religious schools know in advance that they won't play on certain days, that the state schedules on those days, and that joining the state association is a voluntary activity.

As long as the state is following the by-laws, then they're protected. The religious schools can work to change the by-laws, or form their own association, ...

Bob, good points...my guess is the court will also look at the school voluntarily joining the state association. Another consideration may be whether the association has the flexibility to not schedule any tourney games on a certain day each week (between the last day of the regular season to the state finals). Can (should) the season be shortened by a day or days to allow the association to not schedlule tourney games on a certain day each week?

Personally, I think it'll likely be concluded as too overly burdensome to accommodate the request, giving the time constraints of when the tourney must be played, potential advantage/disadvantage of the change, and difficulty of rescheduling at the last minute.

Aggie, you mention that in BYU's case, the only time it becomes even remotely problematic is for the NCAA basketball tournament. That's also true for Portland Adventist Academy. The only time it becomes problematic is during the playoffs.

Also, if some school in the NCAA tourney wanted Saturdays completely "off," that might be problematic for the semifinals, but if BYU or a Seventh-day Adventist university wanted its beliefs (no playing sundown Friday to sundown Saturday) to be accommodated, what would be the big deal about making sure the requesting school played the second game Saturday night (beginning well after sundown)?

I'm inclined to agree with the kind of sentiment expressed by Jimgolf. Promising that a state/tournament will change for a school "no matter what" seems unreasonable, but requiring the state/tournament to consider ways to accommodate the schools in ways that are reasonable makes a lot of sense. The NCAA is making a good faith effort to enable BYU to participate; why can't the OHSAA make a good faith effort to enable Portland Adventist Academy to participate?

I know that in Maine, the Maine Principals Association has accommodated a Seventh-day Adventist school during tournament scheduling. There's no controversy there, that I'm aware of.

Anyway, as the whole issue pertains to us officials, our scheduling issues should not influence this at all. We just serve the game. If they schedule a game when one of us cannot do it, some other official will serve that game.

They can probably accomodate *this* request, but what about the school that says it can't play on Monday, another says it can't play on any days containing the letter "S", another can only play during a waxing moon, ...