Sitting beyond coaching box line

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Ref Ump Welsch

Would you believe one of the nursing professors where I work suggests I carry a small bottle of it while I'm working basketball?

Would you believe that there's an official on my local board that does exactly that? Seriously. It's traditional, in these parts, especially in girls games, that during the pregame introduction of starters, that each starter, after being introduced, runs over the shake the hands of the officials, and then runs over to shake the hand of the opposing head coach. Obviously, there's a whole lotta shaking going on (apologies to Jerry Lee Lewis). He keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer in his warmup jacket pocket, and before the National Anthem, uses it on his hands. In any case, more players, and more officials, are using the fist bump, instead of the hand shake, these days, shorter, less contact, less chance of getting "Cooties".

On a more serious note, our state high school athletics governing body has just published guidelines regarding what to do if games must be postponed due to the H1N1 Swine Influenza. I won't bore you with all the details, but one thing that jumped out at me right away is that in order to facilitate the makeup of games postponed due to Swine Influenza, they would allow makeup games to be played on Sundays. They have never, ever, allowed games to be played on Sundays, for any reason, in the past, so this is a big deal here in the Land of Steady Habits, where some "Blue Laws" are still on the books. We've already had two elementary schools, and one high school, in Connecticut, close down for a few days to interrupt the cycle of contamination, and there are three college campuses, in the state, that are also having problems with student, and teacher, absenteeism due to the Swine Influenza. Hold onto your hand sanitizer and use it if you got it.