Flagrant for Words

[slow whistle]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Liability for what? What if you did not hear the comments? I gave a double T about 2 weeks ago and I have no idea what the players said to each other. And I never claimed it was for their words.



Do you have some legal precedent for this? Is there a court case where an official was held responsible for the actions of a player that said something to another player? Because if that is the case what do you do if you do not hear the comments at all. I realize that we think we know everything as officials, but most of the time I have no idea what players actually say to each other and it really gets hard if you are a loud gym and fans are all over the place.

Peace

I was only commenting to the scenario I laid out where I heard a player tell another player that and penalized based on what I heard. We can scenario play all day long and the penalty changes in each scenario, but if a player says "next trip I'm taking you out" and I tell a coach that he said that (you can be sure that he is going to ask what his player said), then there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room as far as what was said. If I didn't hear it then I am telling the coach "I didn't hear exactly what was said, but the two had words that I judged to be unsportsmanlike", or something similar and agree with you just issuing a regular tech (or double tech).

To your question about precedent, no I am not a lawyer, but it doesn't seem like much of a leap to me if I fail to protect a kid from an explicit threat that I heard and told someone else that I heard, that I could be liable in some way. Seems more prudent in that case to disqualify and tell the coach and player "Sorry, but I can't let it play out to see if you would really act out what you threatened."