Rec rules
 

Just got info about a kids fall rec league at a facility near here. The league is for boys and girls grade 4 - HS. It has some really good rules I thought I'd share and get comments on.

Two 22 minute running halves with stop clock only in the last 2 minutes of the second half if the point spread is 10 or less.

Halftime is 3 minutes.

Each team gets two 30s per half (they don't carry over) - no fulls.

Mercy rule (no backcourt) if spread is 25 or more. One warning then T.

No foul out rule - if a team is down to 5 players, each foul over 5 on a player is an "administrative" T plus the foul. Shoot the T first, then the foul.

Unsportmanlike (non-administrative) technicals are two points, two shots and the ball.

If a player is ejected, they must have a meeting with the Event Director to be reinstated.

I like these so much, I'm going to discuss them with our local rec league Board to see if we can adopt them for our league. We have some of them already.

What do you guys think - especially about the extra penalty for unsportsmanlike technicals?

I've heard of the unsportsmanlike technical penalty previously and I love the idea. It should be instituted in high school, or maybe not. But I do like it for rec league games.

-Josh

Love the idea of the extra penalty. Can I put it into place for my men's rec league this coming Sunday?

Mercy rule - 25 pts for a no press - is a lot of points for 6th grade and below.

I agree, but two points - first, it's been my experience that in this league, most coaches pull off the press at the lower levels when up by about 15 - second, they didn't want to "confuse" the refs by having different rules for the different grade levels because it's typical to have games for vastly different levels in sequence.

Are you sure it is to help the refs or is it to help the coaches who may not know which grade they are coaching? After all, my experience in these leagues is the lower the grade, the closer to the NBA these coaches think they are.

I don't understand this one. Is it to cove the rare case of multiple injuries? Why else would you only have five players if you cant foul out?

So, are you saying the no foul out applies only when a team is down to 5 players? Or does the star play all the time, regardless of his fouls? I personally don't like this one. Learning to play without fouling is an underrated skill.

Yes, only when the team gets down to five eligible players.

So the last 5 standing finish the game, no matter how many more fouls they make get? One who fouled out earlier cannot come back in at this point?

That's correct.

Sly Like A Fox ...
 

So when there are only six eligible players left on a team, and the superstar, and the bench warmer, both have four fouls each, it would behoove the bench warmer to pick up his fifth foul before the superstar picks up his fifth. Coaches would figure out this loophole right away.

I don't like any rule set that allows players to continue playing after they have five fouls. I didn't like it when the Big East experimented with a six foul rule about fifteen years ago, and I don't like it now. This encourages rough play.

The loophole you mention is certainly real...and you make a very good point about it.

As for encouraging rough play, you could just make the additional fouls increasingly costly. In addition to the normal penalty for a foul give an automatic 2 points for the first bonus foul by any player, 4 for the next bonus foul for any player, etc.

I still don't like the idea but this increasing penalty would somewhat negate the value of allowing excessive fouling.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Interesting set of rules, I've never seen anything like that out here.

For youth (8th grade and below), most leagues I've worked have press rules of 10 points and below. Each grade level has different rules for the press as well.

One question: Is there a "participation rule" for the kids? The leagues I've worked generally run by quarters and so the kids either have to play two quarters (in one league) or a certain amount of minutes (in another league).