Eligible, Available, and Sitting

[rainmaker]

Okay so I'm looking back over this trhead and going back through the rule book, case book, handbook, and (old) officials' manual, I'm finding only three references that could even remotely relate to this issue.

Rule 3-1-1-Note: A team must begin the game with five players, but if it has no substitute to replace disqualified or injured players, it must continue with fewer than five.

Case 3.1.1 Situation: Ruling:...Team B must have five players participating as long as it has that number available. If no substitute is available, a team must continue with fewer than five players.

Officials' Manual: page 20, item 118, Reminders:...It is a direct technical foul against a coach who fails to replace an injured or disqualified player in 30 seconds when a substitute is available.

It looks to me as if the whole thing hinges on the word "available." What does it mean, and who interprets it? If it's up to the coach, then I was wrong to enforce it. But there's no way that player wasn't available. She was dressed, had played, hadn't left the game injured (and by the coach's description wasn't injured or sick), she was in the book, and sitting on the bench. Only the coach's desires for the varsity game made her unavailable.

And remember, it's possible he would have won the varsity game if this player had not played, so there was an advantage issue.

I wasn't going to call Howard, but now I think I will, just to set the issue to rest in my own mind.