I don't see why not. All you would have to do is ensure that the old 21 has her number changed in the book.

Yes, she can. The coach told you 21 was injured and that the manager would be taking that uniform. You add the name, give the 21 to the new player and assess the T. The injured player is not returning.

Okay. The situation seemed unfair to me. In allowing the team to add a manager. One of our veteran guys here said it should not be allowed also. But everyones comments here are appreciated. Thanks

Just because a guy is a veteran doesn't mean he knows the rules well. I worked with a veteran one night - he was the R and I was U1. Had I not known the rules that night we would have had a disaster because a situation came up that he did not know how to handle but it was a textbook case. Our assigner and supervisor was advised of the situation and he found out that the R didn't know the rule - how embarrassing!! (I am scheduled to call with him this week - I will be the R this time even thought he as several years of calling games on me (we are assigned the R position usually due to experience - the most experienced get the R slot but obviously not always). So just because a guy has many years of "experience" doesn't mean he really knows the game that well.

Very true. This was a first situation like this for me. Never heard of anything like this to go by or help out on how to handle this so I had to react in the moment to go with it or not. And I chose to not. But thanks for the advice and insight!

Not to pile on but......I'm gonna pile on.

We as officials don't get to call the game according to what we think might be fair or not. Like 'em or not, we're supposed to follow the rules. In this situation, you went directly against NFHS rules and made up your very own rules. That's always wrong.

I hope the comments that you got here were more than appreciated. I hope they'll stop you from doing anything like that in the future.

admittedly extreme devil's advocacy: let's say the coach gave the jersey to what appeared to be a 26-year old woman. or a mom from the crowd. or a man. (I'm picturing Coolidge from the White Shadow squeezing into that #21 shirt.:))

It's still not our call, right? We just have the book changed and assess the T. If the other coach wants to file a protest with the league, that's his/her business.

Because we're never in the business of verifying school IDs, driver's licenses, or--gulp--primary sex characteristics, right?...if it did come to that, though, whose purview would include the locker room peek? The R or the U?;)

I would like to state the point a bit differently: you didn't know the rule, so you guessed based on your own personal sense of fairness. I think some of your defensiveness here comes from feeling that folks' comments were personal attacks on you or your sense of fairness.

Nobody's attacking you personally. They're just insisting that you need to follow the rule and not rely on your sense of fairness (and I think you've gotten that now). And that means knowing the rule -- in advance.

You had a chance at half time of your game to review the substitution rules: that would have been the time to get ready for any book weirdness in the second half.

The other thing to do is to keep engaging in rules discussions on the forum. A lot of people reading this thread will remember it and benefit from learning this rule. They should thank you!

Right, we have no responsibility as to the eligibility of a player to participate in a game. That is strictly a league or state issue. If they are properly dressed and listed in the book, they get to play. The state can decide if they used ineligible players.

I understand the OP's confusion on the number change. The way to view it is that you are just changing two players' numbers. The new player to 21 and the old 21 to whatever number the coach might want to give you (or maybe none at all but it would be cleaner to have one).