Home Team wear Dark
 

G/V game Friday night. While watching the J/V game, we noticed that the home team was in dark and visitors were in white. My two partners, who were veteran officials, started discussing the implications in the V game. So in the hallway on on way to the floor before the 15:00 minute, we stopped the AD to ask him what was up with the uniforms. He said there was an ordering snafu and his home (white) uniforms were not yet shipped . So he call the visiting team and asked them to bring their white. What we ended up doing was we told the AD to call IHSAA and inform them of their situation. We ended up starting the game without penalizing either team. What do you think?

Good Call!
 

No need to over officiate this!

Uniforms
 

Thank goodness common sense finally prevails!!!!! I have seen some teams wear gold uniforms for their home uni's and a darker color (blue or red) for their visiting uniforms. The AD had everything covered WHY would you call the IHSAA?

Because the rules are very specific; whether we agree with them or not.

Because, by rule, the home team must wear white. The AD has no discretion in the matter. If they are not in white, we start the game with free throws and the HC sits. This was a much bigger deal the year we switched to white because then you'd have shots for every player that entered the game with an illegal jersey, but it's no less the rule today than it was then.

But this is an unusual situation, seemingly beyond the HC or players' ability to control. So, of course, we'd prefer not to let that impact the game. That is, as you say, common sense. But what about the rule? A quick phone call to the state office should settle the matter. You cover your back (smaller matters than this have kept officials out of post season). You preempt any trouble an idiot parent or a disgruntled visiting team may cause by making their own call to the state office after the fact. And it alerts the state office to the situation, allowing them to follow up to ensure eventual compliance as well as possibly issuing an official waiver to cover home games in the mean time, thus settling the matter.

Just my $0.02

Should you also penalize the visitor for wearing white? Double T. For what it's worth I think you guys handled it the way I would.

Based on what happened in my state, I am giving Ts. Not my problem and the coach and schools should have known better.

Peace

Interesting point. You are right, of course: "The torso color shall be white for the home team and a contrasting dark color for the visiting team." (NFHS 3-4-1c) Which just makes the whole situation more of a hassle from a rules perspective.

Wasn't one of the reasons for us issuing the T because schools have had five years to take care of this......?

I had a situation a few months ago where a team traveled a long way to do back to back games. They too had made "an agreement" to where dark for one game and whites for another as they had games at night and in the morning and no where to really wash their uni's from one day to the next.....

We had this issue last year in Birmingham. Warehose where the teams new white uni's were stored burned to the ground one week prior to the season. We reported the situation to the state and any uniform type penalties would have been on this team. Situation resolved itself in a week.

Give them the one game pass, then consult the state - let them handle it.

I think you did perfect.

In Virginia it is required that there be a letter from the state association at the table for any team not having white home uniforms. In the OP's case if there was a shipping snafu then the AD (if in Virginia) should have contacted the state association. Why wouldn't the AD call the IHSAA as soon as the shipping snafu came to light?

Based on what my state went through, I am giving a T. I will let everyone else deal with the fall out.

Peace

I really don’t know why this wouldn’t be a T situation. They had all summer to order jerseys.
However, the post about the fire is a little different and was properly reported.

So you're double T'ing to start the game?

Doesn't the intent and purpose of the rule enter this discussion? What is the purpose of this rule? Different colors for obvious reasons. Recently amended from light/dark to specify white for one team. It just so happens the rule was written that the home team wears white so as to avoid confusion as to who wears what. In this case for whatever reason, the home team was unable to wear white. But the home team cleared things in advance with the visitors, so the visitors wore white and there was no confusion. I see it as a non-issue.