Unconscious GPS #2 & 3

[Hawks Coach]

UGPS #2
JV game, varsity is about to come in, JV power forward crashes off court and flattens starting varsity point guard into wall rendering him unconscious for 10 minutes, delaying game and making you mad because you have the varsity game which follows. Does point guard play without MD's note?

UGPS #3
You are at an AAU tournament, 1 minute left in losers bracket final, A1 knocked unconscious. A goes on to win and is playing winners bracket champ B in the championship game which immediately follows the losers bracket championship (lets ignore the awful tournament managment problem here - it has happened before!). Does A1 get to play without MD's note (we are playing NF rules, if you care!). What if game is 90 minutes later, or 5 hours? what would you allow given this knowledge?

[Mark Dexter]

In #2, I'm going to say that the officials' jurisdiction began 15 minutes before the scheduled game time, and the unconsciousness was part of that time.

For #3, A1 is unconscious the second he steps on my court!

Actually, I think the only reason the word player is in the rule is that, otherwise, we'd have to eject 99% of coaches! (Present company excluded, of course.)

[williebfree]

If I have knowledge of a player having been unconscious (Coach, you imply this in your scenarios), that player is NOT coming on the floor as an eligible player, unless they have a physician's release.

2-8-5 ...Determine when a player is apparently unconciuous.
The player may not return to play in the game without
written authorization from a physician.

[daves]

Can't play as far as I'm concerned. As firedoc stated in the other thread about unconscious players, you can't do a comprehensive evaluation on a player that has been unconscious in a basketball gym. It would be unethical of us as officials to let a player play in this situation. It would also be medically unethical for a Dr. to let a player play that day but that's another story.

[Mark Dexter]

Originally posted by williebfree
If I have knowledge of a player having been unconscious (Coach, you imply this in your scenarios), that player is NOT coming on the floor as an eligible player, unless they have a physician's release.

2-8-5 ...Determine when a player is apparently unconciuous.
The player may not return to play in the game without
written authorization from a physician.

Willie, have you been following the "Diabetic Seizure" thread? We've had quite a bit of debate there (all with Mark DeNucci) over the legality of disqualifying a non-"player."

[williebfree]

Yes, I have actively read those postings (diabetic siesure) ... and have NO PROBLEM saying NO PLAYING TIME for an athlete who has been (or appeared) unconscious without being given a physician's written approval prior to his/her return to the court.

It is unconscionable and unethical (as also mentioned on the diabetic thread) to think of any other option in these scenarios. I do not base my judgment on the fear of a lawsuit. In fact, to the contrary, I will eagerly defend a sensible, prudent, and responsible decision of holding the player out for his safety rather than one that I “justify” my ignorance by stating that the "letter of the rules" took precedence over common sense.

BTW: My wife works in the Rehab field so I often see the results of poor judgments in regards to risk over safety.

[Hawks Coach]

Didn't want to extend the previous diabetic 4 pager, but you all are on the same page as me. I'm glad to see that your sense of the rules drives you to a good, solid common sense decision. It is especially important to carefully enforce rules that are written specifically to protect young players who may play without proper medical advice (and who would not be playing were they to have the opportunity to receive such advice).

[Brian Watson]

I agree with the common sense approach, but let's turn the tables a bit.


You are on court 477 of this AAU tourney (in referee Siberia) and these incidents happens on court 5. By the time you and your partner get your game over and get to court 5 you have about enough time to hit the head and grab a drink of warm fountain water. You don't find out until half time that the player was seeing starz before the game. He plays the whole first half, w/o problems, do you sit him then because he was knocked out before the game? Since you didn't witness it, can you rule on it?

The reason I bring this up is, we all know the common sense thing is to sit the kid. But, what if the incident happens in a morning game. The same team has an evening game (This happens frequently in mid-season tourney's and during state tourney time when games are played on Saturday) with a new set of officials. 1st, how are you going to know what happened in the morning (of course the opposing howler monkey would probably alert us to it if the player was good), and 2nd, I don't think, by rule, we can keep a kid out of a different game, especially if we did not witness the incident. Since it is a new game. we really would have to eject the kid to prevent him from coming in to play. Time is really kind of tricky in these situations. What would the difference be if the kid got knocked out during a 10:00AM game and tried to play in a 8:00 PM game vs if that time scenario was switched. If the game was 14 hours later, and on the next day most people would let him play, but if it was 10 hours later on the same day we wouldn't? What is 4 hours going to do?

Again, I don't disagree that the kid should sit. This isn't prefessional ball and injury just isn't worth it, but if the coach were to call you on it, you wouldn't have a rule to stand on.

[daves]

In this case it would really be tough to make the kid sit if you didn't have any prior knowledge. If I found out about it after the fact, I think that I would have a serious heart to heart with the coach about playing the kid after having a head injury. This chat wouldn't be as an official but as a concerned citizen and in my state as a mandatory reporter of child abuse. If putting it in that context doesn't make the coach consider the safety of his players, then maybe a chat with children's services will.