Announcer count down

[Back In The Saddle]

Had a quirky situation in a game last night.

BV, at a brand new school and gym. There were wet paint signs on the wall and a strong varnish smell in the gym. (I blame any missed calls on the fumes!). The scoreboard got fried during installation and didn't work. So they had a small portable scoreboard sitting on the score table. Since it was their very first game in their new building the place was PACKED. Unsurprisingly, it was nearly impossible to hear the portable scoreboard horn. Nor could the scoreboard be read from anywhere along the table side sideline except directly in front of the table.

Near the end of the third quarter, the home team had the ball in their front court and the announcer began counting down the last few seconds. During the intermission the visiting team coach insisted that the announcer was not allowed to do that. We agreed to disagree, but the V HC was not happy (he felt the announcer was giving the home team an unfair advantage).

I'm not aware of any rule that prohibits the announcer from counting down the last few seconds. I'm not aware of any ruling from the state prohibiting it either. Have I missed anything?

Given the situation, I feel it was very helpful and I wish I had thought of it before the game. I would have asked him to do it for each quarter.

One additional kink: when it became obvious hearing the horn was a problem, the AD hooked up the console for the main scoreboard because its horn still worked. That helped. But there was a definite lag between the "official" horn and the main scoreboard horn at the end of each period. My partner and I were aware of it and did our best to position T in front of the table to listen for the "official" horn. In retrospect, to avoid any potential controversy we probably should have pulled the HCs together, explained the problem and told them we would still determine the end of period from the portable scoreboard horn. Fortunately it never became an issue.