City league technicals.
 

Every year I tell myself I'm done doing youth city league games. Every year I end up doing them again. The truth is, I can't resist any chance pick up the whistle - and my wife likes the money.

At any rate, the other day I whacked a kid for slamming the ball down on the floor and watching it bounce 20 feet in the air. As per the usual city league rules, the young man could not sub back in until 20 minutes of game time had passed.

I was told later that the kid was mad at his own teammate for running into him and causing a turnover. That did not change my mind about the call, but it did get me thinking...

In a high school game, a technical is two free throws, possession, and a personal/team foul. In a city league game, it's all that plus a 20-minute "ejection."

Does the fact that the penalty is much more harsh (especially if it's one of their best players) mean it should be viewed differently and called differently?

My own conclusion is: Yes. In the interest of game management, there are some conceivable situations where something that would get a good whacking in a HS game, might not get the same in a city game.

I have a pretty good idea what some of the counter-arguments to this will be. But, I've always been one that tends feels common sense has to take precedence over the rulebook sometimes.

I will now return to my world of insanity, where I debate the intricacies of youth city league game management for fun.

I say absolutely not, unless your special rules also lay out a different definition of what a technical foul is.

T is a T... Its unsportsmanlike and the league wants them to cool down and think about their behavior. Hockey has the penalty box and its not any different. They broke the rules they face the penalty.

Interesting... so in your league you have a 20-minute penalty for getting a technical foul charged to you.... kinda like a penalty box/power play thing. Cool.

1. To be precise you should use "individual" or "player" instead of "personal" in this sense as a technical foul is NEVER also a personal foul, even though it often is charged to a specific individual. Personal fouls and technical fouls are the two basic and mutually exclusive types of fouls.

2. Rec leagues are notorious for bad behavior, which drives away the better officials as they get sick of dealing with it. It seems that you officiate for a well-run league which has a strong desire to discourage unsporting behavior. That is the conclusion I draw from reading that earning a technical foul in it also mandates the loss of twenty minutes of participation. Nothing gets through to a kid like the loss of playing time!
So if you raise your threshold for assessing a technical foul in order to help the kids avoid the tougher penalty, then you are counteracting the message that the league is trying to send. What you call game management, I see as undermining the objective of the policy and the league directors who decided upon it. In my opinion that isn't good common sense.
Therefore, I recommend that you not lessen your standards for a technical foul solely due to the stiffer penalty and that you strongly support the administration of this league in their quest to stamp out such behavior by dealing with it harshly. Please contemplate this for a bit.

Best Wishes.

Years ago, a local church league had a similar rule that any player who picked up a technical foul had to sit out the next period. They also had a rule which said a shot from the backcourt was a technical foul. At the end of a men's game with a tie score, the point guard, arguably the team's best player, took a shot for the win from the backcourt. He missed. Now the other team had two opportunities to win the game at the free throw line. They missed both. Now the point guard was forced to sit out the overtime.

What good reason is there for making a rule penalizing a team/player for shooting in the backcourt? And better yet, why make it a technical? :confused:

The theory was, I believe, that long heaves like this were hard on the goals.
I believe that they had wooden backboards.

+1

This seems exactly right to me. The rationale for the additional penalty is to send a firmer message about unsporting behavior. Help the league out by identifying that behavior.

We've addressed the "frustration bounce" in other threads. Some think it's always unsporting, whether the player is responding to an official's call or a teammate's poor play. Others would advise you to warn, then whack when unsure what the player's responding to.

Either way, it's worth addressing this behavior sooner rather than later, as it doesn't improve with age.

I understand what you're saying, and that thought has crossed my mind, as well. But, really, that's just as much the reason I think I SHOULD consider some situations differently.

If it's a sportsmanship issue, he's going to get whacked just as fast (if not faster) in my city league game as my HS varsity game.

But, how many technical fouls are not sportsmanship issues?

What if it's a delay of game situation? What if it's a non-troublemaking kid who doesn't even know the rule about playing on the rim, just gets excited and hangs on too long after a dunk?

In a normal HS game, there's no problem... shoot the free throws, put the ball into play and move on.

But you can't tell me the intent of the rule is to rob a kid of 20 minutes of game time for multiple throw-in violations.

That's where common sense has to step in, IMO.

It's the type of rule with good intentions, but is poorly thought out, IMO.

When I lived in Seattle and worked baseball, the state had a rule -- if the head coach got ejected, the team would forfeit. Nobody would eject a coach and the coaches knew it and the behavior was worse than after they got rid of the rule. Sure, there were ejections, but many coaches knew that they *would* get run now that it wasn't the nuclear option it once was.

20 minutes on the bench for a technical foul? I could see officials who would call a T for a spike now walking up and saying "don't do that again." To me, it's better to allow the rules of the game to handle this. Whack, shoot, let's go. He won't do it twice or he'll get ejected.

To me, rec league technicals should be like handing out candy on Halloween. Frequent and routine.

Agreed -- but that's a job for the rules makers, not for the officials on a particular game.

Common sense just stepped in.

When you say "multiple throw-in violations," are you talking about Delay of Game violations that occur following a warning? You know, the ones that aren't charged to the player but instead are charged only to the team?

That T is not applied the the player anyway...only a team T. So, I guess the entire team must sit out the next quarter. :D

Surely there must have been disconcertion on one of the FTs.:D

I am referring to 9-2-10. The book states that, "repeated" violations of that rule are a "Player Technical" according to 10-3-5.d.

If my interpretation is correct, that means it's a team foul after the first couple of delay infractions, but if it continues "repeatedly" (good luck finding a consensus on what that means) a player technical could be assessed.

At any rate, in any game we officiate there is subjectivity. I don't know why some won't admit that there are times they will/won't whack somebody based on the situation and all the surrounding factors. Of course it's vitally important to know and officiate the rules as they are written, but we're decieving ourselves if we say there is no element of subjective human judgement.

How is my situation any different from passing on a soft "and-one" in the interest of continuing game flow? Or erring on the side of the team that's trailing 30 points on a 50-50 or 60-40 call?

We do it every night gentlemen...

The penalty for the 2nd DOG violation is a team technical foul (10-1-5c, 9-2-10 penalty 2). 10-3-5d gives us leeway to call a player T if B1 keeps doing it. Frankly, if I'm even considering this, he's done it at least twice in a row and will be warned. If he runs through that warning, then I'd be happy to have him sit for 20 minutes. That's very much a sportsmanship issue.

As for letting the soft "and one" (I hate that phrase) go, that's a matter of determining advantage. If the shooter is contacted and it doesn't noticeably affect his shot, it's not a foul. That's a whole different issue.

As for the blowout calls, that's local. There are some high level officials in here who never do it; I know some high level officials that do.

Do game situations come into play when I call a T? Sure, they'll certainly come into play if I sense a situation brewing and think I can difuse it. I don't think that hard about my Ts, though, so the last thing I need to do is wonder whether the penalty is too severe.

If you want them to change, call the T when the next kid slaps the ball in the OOB thrower's hands, making him sit 20 minutes. They'll change it then.

And here is the crux of the whole issue, IMO.

We can talk all we want about iron-clad consistency, eliminating personal philosophies, etc.

But, at the end of the day, we all make our subjective judgements about items big and small. Every single one of us.

I suppose the goal should be to learn how that judgement process works for the very best officials.

Making those calls in a way that improves the game and manages the situation most effectively is probably what sets them apart from me to begin with :D

I think the call for consistency is a pipe dream of people like Nevada when it comes to certain issues. The NFHS can cry all they want, but unless local assigners buy in, it won't do any good.

Personally, I wouldn't change the way I call Ts in your game based on the added penalty, but that's me. If you have an issue, you might want to contact that particular league and see if they want you to be more cautious in dishing out Ts.

The penalty by the league should not factor into your decision. A technical foul is a technical foul and should be penalized as such. Slamming the ball down because he is mad at a teammate is unfortunate, but when the ball flies 20 feet, that player is only drawing attention to himself and didn't leave you much of a choice it sounds like.

By the way, the very issue that started this, slamming the ball, isn't consistently called a T either. Some officials will get it every time, others will talk to the player; particularly if it's obvious his frustration is self-directed.

There's a difference between managing a game and calling (or not) something based on league administration issues.

Give the T if it's earned, and if it's not worthy of a suspension, then let the player / coach appeal it to the league.