I think the fact is, there ACs are risking penalty if they come on the court. If they do it, and don't get penalized, they got lucky. My advice to all coaches would be to have the ACs stay on the bench and mind the players there. Deviate at your own risk.

Honestly ... if they wanted leeway here, they would not post a caseplay to cover it specifically and show the difference.

Maybe, but it will still be judged according to the desires of the powers of every geographic location in the country.

Besides, there are case plays for multiple and false double fouls that no one really ever wants to see called.

My scenario isn’t attempting to influence an official’s decision if the HC/assistant says “Ref, their assistant is on the court.” If that’s the case then they’re pointing out fact. I could always choose to ignore them.

Now, when I’m sorting out what happened after the mayhem and I explain the penalties to both coaches and, in that explanation, I neglect to mention a flagrant technical on Team A’s assistant and the HC of Team B reminds me Team A’s assistant was on the court, what then? Better for Team A’s HC to be upset for me doing what I’m supposed to do – which, again, can be defended by my supervisor – than Team B’s HC to be upset for me NOT doing what I’m supposed to do.

That is exactly what they're doing. If they didn't want to try to influence you to call them for it, they wouldn't mention it.

The fact remains that despite how many case plays there are around technical fouls, there are FAR, FAR more that fit the rule and/or case play which go uncalled than are called. This one, even with a case play, seems like a plumbing job.

No, it's exactly as Jet and I have already said, it's pointing out a fact. After I address the act and/or their comment and they continue chirp about it, THEN it becomes trying to influence an official's decision.

And your comparison between a statement a coach makes and a physical act that can be seen by all makes no sense. If you don't want to call a T for an AC breaking up a fight, good. But, don't make up some apples & oranges comparison in order to justify it; just stand by "I won't call it.'

Well, if I'm the official, I would know whether or not I saw it. If I saw it, I would say, "Coach, I see that". If I didn't see it, I would say, "Ok, I got you ( or thanks coach)." It's what is or isn't said by the coach(es) from that point on that, in my judgment, determines whether or not they are trying to influence my decision.

Okay, say I agree with you. You’re still not addressing part two of my previous comment. Team B’s HC advises you of the situation. You don’t give a flagrant technical to Team A’s assistant. After the game, Team B’s coach tells his AD. His AD contacts your supervisor/assignor and sends him/her a DVD of the game – a distinct possibility regardless since there was a fight. Your supervisor/assignor looks at the video and determines the HC of Team B was correct.

You tell your supervisor/assignor…what? You didn’t eject the assistant because you didn’t want to? I’ll admit honesty might be the best way to go since chances are you’re going to lose part, if not all, of your schedule but none of the answers you give is going to be satisfactory.

I'll tell my supervisor that the assistant was nothing but helpful and beneficial to the situation and had been nothing but that the entire game and it would have been completely against the spirit of the rule to have issued a T. And I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me.

My point is that whether you see it or not is irrelevant to whether they are trying to influence your call. I think we can dance around it every day and twice on Sunday, the fact is they're trying to influence us. Whether they're yelling "travel," "that's a foul," "three seconds," or "carry," they're trying to influence our calls.

The fact is, we don't normally issue a T on this unless they get persistent with it.

I'm not dancing around anything. Following that logic, anytime a coach opens his mouth he is "trying to influence a call" and therefore should never address an official.

It is the judgment of that individual official whether or not a coach is trying to influence a decision based upon that official's interpretation of the conversation. It's that simple to me. And to compare this to the physical act of an assistant coach being on floor is quite ludicrous, IMHO.

I'm with Camron here. If an adult comes on the court and clearly all he does is help separate participants in a fight or help with an injury, no matter who he is, there's not gonna be a penalty from me.

As part of my pregame I ask the head coach if there are special issues with any player, such as asthma, seizures or an injury that may come into play. Before the rule change, I would go on to tell this coach that if something happens with this (or any other) player that legitimately needs your attention out on the court, consider yourself beckoned, don't wait for me.

For me, that same philosophy applies to the matter at hand.

Not anytime he opens his mouth. If he asks, "why wasn't that a foul" or "did you see that travel," then I'll take that as a legimate question. But I can't see "that's a foul" or "that's a travel" or "you have got to call that carry" as anything but an attempt to influence our decisions. The fact is, to me, this violates the letter of the rule.

That said, I don't really deal well with a coach playing Jeapordy, either, but that's a matter of judgment and HTBT.

I'm not saying we should call it, or even address it, because doing so until he violates the Ps (persistent, personal, or profane) is going to severely limit one's schedule. I just concur with Camron that this is a case where we do not follow the letter of the rule.

Now, whether it gets applied to the AC coming onto the court is a different matter. Personally, I'm not inclined to want to toss an AC who actually came onto the court to control the fight. However, I'm also not inclined to ignore this very clear interpretation, and if I have a fight this year and an AC comes on to help, he'll find himself outside the gym for the remainder of the game. I doubt it will be that big of a deal, since the HC will likely want him watching little Johnny in the locker room.

Here’s what the NFHS wrote about the rule change:

What I take from this is the idea is to deal with the chaos on the court while keeping other people – mainly players – off the court. If an assistant comes on the court that’s one less person to keep an eye on the other bench personnel. Bad idea.

The “it’s not the spirit of the rule” thought process in this situation explains why coaches get upset with us and say we’re not consistent from game to game or crew to crew. The rule is there and so is the interpretation. There’s nothing in there that says “if an assistant comes onto the court and is a peacemaker he/she can remain in the game.” If we forget it that’s one thing but if we know what it is and decide not to enforce it because we don’t want to be the bad guy that’s where problems start. The coaches know the rule and even if they don’t, that’s not my problem.

There is game management, there is security in many cases, they can get involved if it gets that out of hand. Otherwise the the HC is responsible for his bench and if the assistants cannot do their job and just keep players on the bench, they will be penalized accordingly when they come onto the court.

Peace