The chapter of officials that covers our league for both boys and girls holds an annual banquet, and invites all the coaches. Our schools cover the cost of attendance, so most of us go. Free meal and draft beer, and some camaraderie.

The official that always acts as MC is a rather witty guy. He asked everyone to pull out their rule books to note these new rule changes. The first was about the fighting rule. He mentioned that it is now optional to enforce this rule. That if all involved said they were sorry, you could continue the game like nothing happened. (A shot at the PIAA for allowing the state championship to continue after a bench-clearing brawl.)

The other was about permitting contestants to resume participating after getting knocked out. He said that it was okay to allow a coach to continue without a doctor's note. (A jab at the boys' coach at our school, who got knocked out by an opposing player's foot with 20 seconds left in a three-point game. It was a collision right in front of the bench and he leaned down to keep the player from sliding into the bench and got a foot in the temple. After a short delay the game continued, which our school won in overtime.)

All in all a fun event. If your chapter doesn't do something like this, you should consider it. It's much harder to be nasty to officials when you've been able to get to know them socially.

We would invite coaches but we've yet to find a banquet facility that serves Purina Monkey Chow.

The head of our A.D.'s association recently requested that we not have any coaches come to any of our "official's functions" because "if they all can't attend, there will be a perception of bias." This stemmed from a complaint from a paranoid coach over a years-long practice of rotating individual coaches as presenters at some of our official's meetings during the year (yes, he would have been invited next year). Yes, it really has become that ridiculous. We're trying to figure out a PC way to say, "bite me" to the A.D. association. :-)

Z

Hold it in mid-March. You guys can ask the coaches for some help filling out your NCAA brackets. :D

Can't you just invite all the coaches? If they don't want to make time to come, well, too bad.

You have to understand.
 

That would be too much like right.

Peace

I don't want to rehash a previous post. But no, the A.D.'s association doesn't want us to invite <b>all </b>coaches because some of them wouldn't be able to make it so it would be unfair. Yes, it's petty and silly....and it's been done for years... and we'll continue to do it.

Z