NFHS Mechanics Question (3)

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Or, it is a choice not to be lazy but to be in a better position to manage the game.

If you can't, on a non-rebounding FT, observe the players outside the 3-point line from the division line (which is a point you claim as the reason for the T to drop down), you should retire.

While you can make the arguement that the rules should be enforced the same everywhere, that argument doesn't apply to mechanics. The mechanics book just provides guidelines, not a rules. Nothing in the mechanics book is required unless your local organization chooses to adopt it. Of course, many do, but many do not. There is no one right way to do mechanics. All that matters is that the crew knows what to expect of each other...who is watching what, etc.

1. Managing the game does NOT include being taken away from your duty to assist your partners by a coach. That's called leaving your partners in a lurch and expecting them to cover for you.

2. It depends where those players are standing. If they are right on the 3pt arc and contesting for position, then the T had better be down by the 28 foot mark to see if they break the plane of the 3pt line. The C is busy watching the FT shooter for that same violation and can't focus on both spots. If the majority of the players are back by the division line or behind, then that is where the T should be, and not to be chatting with the coach, but to be observing those players.

3. While the mechanics are suggested guidelines and I agree that the most important thing is for the crew to understand their responsibilities and be able to handle them, the mechanics are what they are because these methods have been tried and tested by many officials for years and found to give the officials the best probability of being in the right position to see the action and thus make the correct call. When a better way of accomplishing this goal is found the mechanic is changed.

They aren't just what someone sitting around a table thinks about where people should stand. They are the official mechanics for good reasons. It is my opinion that too many people have an inflated opinion of themselves and believe that they know better than these many people with many years of experience and unjustifiably alter the prescribed procedures.
More often than not that leads to problems.