Rule change discussion tonight - need your advice
 

Tonight is our monthly meeting for our local kids rec league. Yes, we meet even during the "off season". Typically, at our June meetings, we discuss possible rule changes. We haven't had any for a few years (except to adopt any NF changes) but tonight I have a fairly major one I'm going to propose. It's that we go to running clock in all games. We did this at all levels for about 20 years but changed about 10 years ago just to make the games "more like how actual HS games are played". We did keep 3rd and 4th grade running but it's gotten to the point where we spend too much time correcting the stop clock with our volunteer parent clock keepers in grades 5 through 12. Going to running clock in all games would keep them more on time and on schedule. This is a consideration since we only rent the gyms from the school district for a certain number of hours and we often wind up shortening the later game quarters and between periods and/or warm up time just to get all the games in.

I'm just wondering if you guys have any thoughts based on your experience in kids rec leagues as to whether using running clock is a "detriment" in any way. Thanks.

BTW - we also have a rule (passed about 5 years ago with me voting "no") that makes it a technical foul to shout in a shooter's face when he or she is releasing the ball on a shot - even to yell "shot". My comment at the time was "this isn't golf". :D

Personally, I don't mind it. Whether you use 6 minute stopped clock quarters, or 20 minute running halves, the games take about the same amount of time. The benefit of the running halves, though, is consistency. All the summer leagues here use 20 minute running halves, and I haven't been off schedule yet even with two over time games. Of course, the OTs are sudden death.

I think the consistency is the biggest issue. With stop clock, you can have very short games or very long games depending on the style and skill level (few or many fouls/violations).

Since many rec leagues are on a tight budget and you must vacate the gym on time, it only makes sense to make sure everyone gets a fair allotment of game time and not shortchange those at the end of the day when you lose access to the gym.

The only way to effectively do that would be to use a running clock OR put time limits on games....where X minutes before the next scheduled game time, you could drop the game clock to 1 or 2 minutes if it is not already below 1 or 2 minutes. This would allow games that were progressing well to be unaffected and would have a normal clock situation while the long-running games would be cut short.

In a league that I once ran, we did some things just a little different though with the period endings. In addition to the the typical stop clock in the last 1 or 2 minutes of the game if the score difference was 10 or less, we had a stop clock at the end of all other periods (half/quarter) when it was under 30 seconds. This didn't really affect the length of the game but was enough to prevent a team from deliberately delaying a throwin/freethrow in order to make sure the other team wouldn't get the ball back or wouldn't get a chance to score by making the time run out during the FT or dead ball. Before we stopped the clock at the end of all periods, we had some men's teams do exactly that.

Having a stop clock at least at the ends of each periods also gives the kids some exposure to clock management....not a major item, but one that is part of the game as they move up.

Thanks for the input, Camron. I understand about going to stop time at the end of each running period for the reason you mentioned, but one of my goals here is to make the timing of the game the least confusing for the clock operators as possible. These people are volunteer dads and moms who have virtually no experience doing this.

BTW - I always tell them that if they forget to stop the clock, we won't say anything but if they forget to start it, we'll yell at them. :D

Keep fighting that one. The whole point of such rules is to prevent taunting. Taunting -- and not communicating -- should be penalized. I think you know what to push.

Oh, and rec leagues here are the usual running time, with stop time in the last 1-2 minutes.

20 minute running clock. Sttop on whistle last 2 minutes of game.
3 time-outs per game with a maximum of 2 per half. Therefore if a team does not use a T/O the 1st half they lose it.
All shooting fouls are 1 shot for 2 points. Unless the player makes the basket, then the 'and one' free throw would only be 1 point. When the team reaches 7 fouls, again. 1 free throw for 2 points for the remainder of the game.

The local CYO league switched to 12 minute stop halves instead of 6 MIn quarters 2 years ago. It has led to more games staying on schedule. It aslo helps when you have a competent coordinator on site that pushes the teams to clear the court and the benches right awayonce a game is over and starts the warm up clock promptly for the teams coming in to play.

We use this rule for the summer league I'm currently working. It's a high school league, and they very much want to keep games short and moving. While I agree with the "one for two" policy in a summer league setting, I disagree with it for a regular season...even for rec league.

To me, a regular season setting means a more formal rule set. I don't mind the 20 minute running clock halves (clock stops in final minute), in fact I'd be in favor of it for rec leagues.

It seems like 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other. Not sure there is a right or wrong with this. Play whatever is easier to run and keeps games on time. Many of the leagues that are played under "normal rules" that I am exposed to are 6 minute quarters. Then again those are not played in the summer with many local or club type teams playing at the same time. So in that case running clock might be the best. I will say that 20 minutes seems a lot for kids that young. Maybe 18 or 16 would be better. But then again that might not be long enough.

Peace

My 7th-8th grade league has used 4 10-minute running quarters for the past twelve years, with the clock stopping for the last 2 minutes of the game.
Our younger age groups transitioned to 8-minute quarters a couple of years ago.
Personally, I would prefer going to halves, but the leagues all have rules regarding minimum number of quarters played, so staying with the quarters has helped us monitor that rule.
Our younger ages had "normal" games before they came under my organization's umbrella, and keeping them on track was an ongoing nightmare.

Wow that's terrible. I always taught my players that when your man shoots a jumper, yell shot to alert any teammates who aren't in position to see it so they can box out. Pretty standard.

Here's what happened. We formed a rules committee to come back to the Board next month with recommendations. This is pretty standard for us. The committee has five members, three are refs and two are coaches. One coach is at the HS level and the other coaches a 4th and a 7th grade team.

My suggestions will be to go to running halves in all games and limit the timeouts to just the three 60 seconds. The length of the halves would depend upon the grade level. We would go to stop clock at the two minute mark in only the second half if the point differential was 10 or less and back to running clock if it gets back up over 10. I think the committee will agree and bring these proposed changes back to the Board. There's a good chance they will approve them.

BTW - this is the league that doesn't recognize a coaching box and allows only players on the floor to request timeouts. While it's no big deal to me and some other refs if we allowed coaches to request from the bench, we have so many first and second years refs each year (and many of those are HS kids) that it eliminates a lot of confusion by having the rule this way.

Oh yeah - also, any profanity from a coach or player is an automatic flagrant technical, except we use our judgment at the HS level. What I mean by this is that if, for instance, a HS kid misses an open layup and mutters something at himself under his breath and we hear it, we can issue just a technical without it being flagrant. That's about the only exception and we have only experienced refs working the HS level, so it works out OK.

I'm still open to any other suggestions out there. Thanks.

Also BTW - I ran into (figuratively, not literally) the Immortal Dave yesterday at a store and he told me he is quitting reffing! He said he really doesn't enjoy it anymore. However, when I asked him if he would consider coming back to our kids rec league, he said he might, since it's actually fun. Those of you who have been around this site for a while know to whom I'm referring. Dave is the all-time champion of sharp, sarcastic comebacks to coaches, players and especially parents. I've learned a lot from him over the years.

... Has Left The Building ...
 

Is he the "Blue Font King"?