Mean Ol' JR...:D

JR, do you believe there should be a signal or is the game better off without one and simply state when reporting?

Do you need a lesson in logic? Just because A is not necessarily B does not mean that B cannot possibly be A.

You quoted earlier where it said that a flagrant foul may or may not be intentional, that is the point that I am seizing on. You claim that the Fed's interpretation is that "intentional" in this case is to be used as an adjective not the type of foul...all I am saying is that is vague...saying that a flagrant may or may not be intentional is not the same as saying that a flagrant CANNOT BE intentional...

What do you do when you have a flagrant foul AFTER the player ejection? What do you do after an intentional foul? Are they the same? I understand that you have an ejection with a flagrant....As I said earlier, unless you have a fight where all hell has broken loose and you don't ever even give the preliminary signal for the foul anyway, if it is a play at the basket for instance, I see a benefit of signaling the intentional foul initially, then figuring out if you have a flagrant...maybe I am "changing my call" at that point if I go to the flagrant, either way I get to the same place...or are you going to tell me next that I can't "change my call" from intentional to flagrant when I get to the table? Have I committed myself to "only" the intentional once I signal it? What if you just signal a personal foul preliminarily thinking that you have a flagrant, then you are asking yourself as you walk to the table "geez was that "violent" contact or just "excessive" contact"...then you decide "well it really wasn't that violent, it was just excessive". So now you get to the table and now you have to report an intentional foul when you never signaled one with your preliminary signal...makes more sense to me to signal the intentional to begin with if you have it, then decide if you are going to eject a player if the contact is deemed "violent"....again, gives you a chance to huddle w/ partners, etc, take your time before you send a player to the showers....

Yeah, mean ol' me.:D

Personally, I think that an approved signal would be helpful, if only if it helps to stop the confusion between "flagrant" and "intentional" fouls. It might let everybody know when somebody is parking lot bound. Of course, the baseball heave-ho used by most officials now seems to send the same message.

Of course, I have also heard the position taken that an over-demonstrative buh-bye display can inflame a situation. There's some merit to that point too imo. My own view is that if you have to unload someone, do it quickly, decisively...and unemotionally. And report it to the bench the same way.

kbilla -- let's see if I can summarize for you, using a slightly different vocabulary. I'll capitalize the names of the types of fouls so you can differentiate when I'm describing and when I'm naming.

First of all , there's the Intentional Foul. There are two sub-categories of Intentional Fouls. There's the Intentional Foul to stop the clock. This foul is a foul committed on purpose in order to stop the clock. In order to be called Intentional, it must be not a basketball play, not a play on the ball, and so on. It doesn't need to be excessive contact. Examples are two hands on the back or on one shoulder, or grabbing the jersey from the back or side.

Then there's the "excessive contact" Intentional Foul. This foul doesn't have to be on-purpose, just a reckless play on the ball, for example a body slam or a hard two-handed whack that aims for the ball, but hits the head by mistake. Remember, it doesn't have to be done on purpose. It doesn't have to be intended to be violent or excessive. The excess is usually accidental or careless.

Regarding contact, Flagrant fouls are violent or savage contact that constitutes fighting. It's not about basketball anymore, it's just me getting a piece of you, so to speak. Even an Intentional foul that's reckless but intended to stop the clock isn't flagrant. Even if the contact is really, really rough, unless it constitutes fighting, it's just an Intentional, and never Flagrant or Technical.

All those definitions are with regard to contact during a live ball.

You have to do that kind of thinking in your head ahead of time. Decide right now that excessive live ball contact is ALWAYS Intentional, NEVER flagrant. Just make that decision. "Violent" is reserved for "beginning of a fight". If it's live ball action that has anything at all to do with the game, it's Intentional, not Flagrant.

See? During a live ball, Flagrant fouls are only for the racial slur/profanity type foul, or something that's really a fight. You don't have to decide if it's flagrant. Then to decide between just a regular old common foul, or an Intnetional Foul, you just set your own boundary of "excessive" contact. If you call two every game, your boundary is too low. If you only call one in 100 games, it's probably too high (unless you're only doing 6th grade girls). Set those "limbo bars" ahead of time, and then when you see it, call it decisively and quickly. No deciding during the game. You've already figured it out.

Consider this . . .

B1 flagrantly shoves A1 during a shot, and you're planning to eject him. You give the intentional foul signal, wait for things to calm down, then you report the foul to the bench. You now tell the coach that, even though you only signalled an intentional foul, B1 is DQed for the rest of the game. Have fun with that one.

When I eject, I either give the "door point" at the spot or wait to report it verbally at the table.

Absoultely I agree with 100% of what you are saying. I am not claiming that an intentional foul IS a flagrant foul..by no means! All I am saying is that every flagrant foul I have ever encountered has been ALSO intentional, so my preliminary signal is always an intentional foul, THEN I sort out whether or not it is flagrant - how do you have "violent contact" without it being "excessive" (one definition of an intentional foul)? Punch someone in the face but only do it once? Maybe this is not the intention of the Fed to use the mechanic in this way (open to debate IMO), but this method a) Achieves the exact same result as NOT giving the intentional foul signal preliminarily and b) Communicates that the foul is "in excess of" a garden variety personal foul right from your preliminary signal....again if you are talking about a fight then you probably aren't going to have the chance to give ANY preliminary signal b/c you are going to be in a scrum or running away from one, so the mechanic itself sort of goes out the window at that point...but a flagrant foul does not apply only in a fight situation...would a two handed shove in the back on a player going in for a layup be considered flagrant to you? It probably would to me depending on the severity, but again this is why I believe you need to see these things develop in the context of each game before deciding on which way to go...

Here you go:
Perhaps the bolded sentence in 4.19.4 is confusing: it cannot mean that a flagrant foul might or might not be an intentional foul. The definitions of the foul types are quite distinct, so it's not the case that one could be a subset of the other (the way that common fouls are a subset of personal fouls, for example).

You also cannot have an intentional foul become a flagrant foul, although you might have one followed immediately by the other.

So, JR is correct to say that no flagrant foul is an intentional foul. It might, of course, be intentionally flagrant, but that's neither here nor there. And semantics will be important as long as words have meanings.

Questions?

How is that going to be any more difficult than just signalling a regular personal foul initially and then going over to explain to the coach that his player is DQ'd? Either way not an easy situation, but you do what you have to do...I don't believe that pointing to the door or anywhere else for that matter is a FED/NCAA mechanic either is it? Of course not, but I use that one too!

The difference is this: if you signal an intentional foul, and then eject the player, you are applying a penalty that does not apply to an intentional foul. Now you must explain the discrepancy.

If you signal a personal foul, and then eject the player, you can still rule that the foul was flagrant. Since there is no distinct mechanic for signaling a flagrant foul, and every flagrant foul is either personal or technical, then a reasonable approach would be to signal personal foul and then to further specify 'flagrant' when you arrive at the table.

The point is that you shouldn't deal with the lack of a flagrant foul mechanic by signaling something that the foul isn't, namely an intentional foul (nor should you signal any kind of violation, double foul, or anything else this foul isn't). But it IS a personal (or technical) foul, so it's not misleading to signal that.

I personally like adding the "toss" mechanic, but I'm a baseball guy; the official's manual doesn't specify that.

Rainmaker, that's completely wrong.

Excessive live ball contact can be <b>either</b> intentional or flagrant. It's a judgment call that is based on the severity of the act.

The fact that the ball is live or not determines whether the foul is personal or technical, except for the exception in 4-19-1NOTE. Whether the ball is live or not is not a factor as to whether a foul is intentional or flagrant.

Flagrant fouls do <b>not</b> have to have anything to do with a fight either. It can be an attempt to injure.

I appreciate your logic. I have used a form of the intentional as my flagrant... meaning I called Intentional Foul (arms crossed above head) and then briskly pulled them down to my waist (still crossed) to indicate flagrant. After reading your posts distinguishing the two fouls, perhaps I should no longer use that either.

You will run into knowledgeable coaches, especially at the higher levels, that know the difference between intentional and flagrant fouls. They know that their player shouldn't be getting tossed if you signaled "intentional". And you will also be evaluated somewhere down the line, even though you may not be aware of it. So, jmo but it's always a good idea to use established mechanics and signals. They might not care if you're signaling while walking or that you're a little bit outside the reporting area. Those aren't biggies. Tossing a player after signaling a foul that doesn't call for an ejection could cost you a whole lot of grief though.

Since you're probably the only official in the country to use it, I would agree. ;)

I had my own signal for an ejection of a coach, but I stopped using it when enough people told me it was an obscene gesture. :D