The only signal I recognize in this situation is the "T." That's it.

And I'll grant that knowing whether he has any TOs left will affect whether I'm looking for him to signal it. But either way, if I see something that looks like it might possibly be a timeout signal; I'm not granting anything. If I see a timeout signal and see his lips moving something similar to "time out," I'm granting it. I'll deal with the consequences (T-fouls, for example) from there.

Agreed I totally screwed up and did learn from it as I said. IMO there is a gray area here - what are the approved "visual signals" (8-3) that a coach can use to signal TO? Is it just the "T"? Is it the "double foul" signal? Is it the "30-second timeout" signal? I think in regular situations we all grant timeouts based on any one of these without issue. The problem comes in in a situation like mine where you have what looks to be a "T" signal is claimed not to be by the coach. Would you have issued the technical? What if the signal he was giving at the time was his "T" signal, just slightly sloppy? To me this is where knowing how many time-outs are left is important. Agree with you by rule it doesn't matter in terms of whether or not to grant it, however, whether or not to grant the TO requires judgement, and knowing all of the pieces of the puzzle is important to exercise good judgement. Again, not to beat a dead horse, but I feel like officials are really hung out to dry by this rule.

So you would assess the tech? It is definitely something that we considered.

Make it part of your pre-game. Agree amongst yourself that you will all accept any of the 3 signals noted above as being valid TO signals. And then have the R mention that to both head coaches, also pre-game. Just tell the head coaches that if they want a TO granted, we need an unambiguous request either verbally or by approved signal. And if there's any doubt at all, they ain't getting one.

And as for the # of TO's remaining, the scorer by rule(2-11-6) has to let one of the officials know when a team has taken their last TO. That official then has to inform that team and it's head coach that he's out of TO's, and the official should also let his partners know that at the same time. Make sure pre-game that the scorer knows that this is his duty and he has to do it.

An ounce of prevention yada yada yada......

If I granted a TO using the criteria in the post above, yes, I would then call a "T" for an excess TO.

Agreed - and prevention was the lesson learned no doubt.

I also really like the idea of pre-gaming this with coaches, it is actually one of the only things that I can think of that is useful to mention in the coach/captain pre-game!!

Unless I'm misreading the play, I disagree.

Time running out, coach yells for play "Five Out," official blows whistle, team is out of time outs. Ruling: IW.

I'd have the same where he's signalling for play "upside down V" with his hands. ;)

To clarify, I said "T" for an unambiguous request as per my previous post.

If there was ambiguity, I agree with the IW.

As for the OP, the bench requested a timeout, which was granted. Why is this any different than when the HC whose team doesn't have the ball makes the request? Even if it was improperly granted, it was still granted, and according to 5.8.3, once granted it cannot be revoked.

Do you hold to this when the coach says "Side out!" and a TO is granted? What if a spectator behind the bench says it? They have as much authority here as anyone on the bench.

In these cases no one who mattered asked for a timeout. Totally different.

Next you say that nobody else on the bench has this authority. True. But the HC is responsible for the actions of the bench, so if he didn't want them asking for timeouts, he should have let them know.

And the official is responsible to make sure it's requested by someone who has the authority to do so. This is a completely different scenario than a player or HC requesting it at the wrong time; they have the authority to request it, so if should be held responsible if you accidentally grant it.

I didn't realize which guy on the bench actually made the request.

I didn't realize the other team had the ball.

One doesn't seem a lot worse than the other to me.

One's by a "proper" person at an "improper" time.

The other's by an "improper person" which, by definition, also is at an "improper" time. It's 2x bad. ;)

I think they're both equal mistakes by the officials.

They are not both equal mistakes by the teams, however.