Unsportsmanlike Conduct Question
 

Hello all. I am the PA announcer for a JC football team, and last night we had penalty enforcement that didn't seem quite right to any of us in the box.

On a 2nd down, the defense (home team) sacked the QB, which would have made it 3rd and 17. The sacker however was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. The penalty was enforced, but the down was still 3rd, with 2 yards to go. We all thought that was an automatic 1st down, fairly certain that we have seen unsportsmanlike conducts result in automatic first down's in the past in that situation where the 15 yds wouldn't make a 1st on its own.

Game is played with NCAA rules. Was this correct? Also, is there a difference in High School NF rules? Thanks for your responses.

UC does not carry an auto 1st down penalty in NCAA rules

Neither does it in NF rules. You mean the officials new more than the announcers!!!:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :D

Nor does Fed. Unsportsmanlike fouls are enforced as dead ball and from the succeeding spot.

Of course they know more than me:D , although judging from the complaining I heard coming out the next door window from visitor's radio, I think they thought they were more all-knowing.

Wow, JayCees have announcers at their games in San Diego?!

And lights?!

And a press box?! With more than one person in it?!!!

Robert

Canadian Ruling
 

CANADIAN RULING:

Nor does UC carry an AFD is Canada. :) UC is called Objectionable Conduct, and is 10 yards tacked on the next play.

Yeah, and some of us even care enough to try and enhance our knowledge in appropriate areas of the game, especially since the school's we work for are too cheap to buy a microphone to put on the Referee, and the fans are too stupid to just know the signals and enforcements.

REPLY: I, for one, applaud you for it. Too many of your colleagues--even at the 'major network' level--rely on either an antiquated (rules do change) or a woefully inadequate knowledge of the rules. And then they compound their errors by speaking as the ultimate authorities on the officials' rules knowledge and judgment.

I notice that you're fairly new to our forum. Welcome...and please don't hesitate to return if you have other questions.

Schools you work for? I understood that you were an announcer at a game of Junior Chamber of Commerce sponsored clubs/teams. Or was "JC" a typo for "JV"?

If not a typo, how old are the players? I coach youth football in New York City, and I'm impressed with the apparent interest out west that has such things as a press box, etc. at such a game. Miked officials would be really stunning! BTW, here we do have a few night games for some of our older players (teen age), but things like PA, etc. would seem really lavish to us. Some games our Pee-Wees & below don't have goal posts (not that we could kick over them anyway) , and usually the fields are chalked (if at all) only every 10 yards and frequently have cones instead of regulation pylons.

Actually even if it was a typo, I'm still somewhat impressed by a HS JV having a night game.

Robert

We had a varsity game a couple of weeks ago at a small school. The PA announcer got every signal right (including the difference between illegal motion and illegal shift and he even got a spearing call right). He gave the usual sportsmanship speech at the beginning - but also did it two or three times during the game. He introduced the officials three or four times, including once in the fourth quarter when he said "and haven't they done a great job tonight." During an injury timeout, he introduced us all, then read a 30 second public service announcement from the state about how people can get involved in officiating.

Obviously, I wrote him up to the state office, as well as the school. Which had someone to meet us and take care of us the whole night - right up to the time we got into our car at the end of the game.

Gee, sometimes this can be fun! :)

Is this what I picture Heaven to be like?

JC = junior college

JC = Junior College. I did start out doing PA for HS JV games 13 years ago as a sophomore in high school after the regular guy got ejected one day.

REPLY: The PA guy got ejected!!! That must be a story in itself.

Thanks, and I will definitely continue looking around here and asking questions when they arise.

The Ejected PA guy
 

Yeah. This guy was an alumnus who fancied himself as a play-by-play guy, except that he was really bad. To make a long story short, on the play in question, our QB was scrambling around the pocket looking to make a play when the PA guy screamed into the mic, "AND (QB's NAME) HAS (WR's NAME) WIDE OPEN DOWN THE RIGHT SIDELINE."...it was very obvious the QB had no clue. But as soon as that was said, he stopped running, turned to the right, and threw a beautiful pass which resulted in a TD. The other team's coaches were very unhappy.

After a lengthy discussion, the officials let the play stand (still seems wrong for some reason) and excused the announcer for the remainder of the afternoon. I was in the box because the teacher who signed-up to run the clock had no idea what they were doing, so I was helping them. Having just started PA experience with JV baseball the previous spring, I decided to grab the mic (since he left the rosters) and took over.

When the Assistant Principal in charge of athletics found out the next day what happened, he fired the guy and that started me on my path.

In San Diego, CA the JV game is usually right before the V game. Yeah, that's right, we do JV/V doubleheaders almost every Friday. Some of the schools run the JV right after school lets out, so they really are not "night" games (and it also makes for a lovely hour and a half wait between games for the officials), but a lot start at 4:30 or 5:00, so you end up under the lights. And, those schools typically run their freshman programs at that time only on Thursdays, so they'll play the second half under lights too.
As for the little guys, most of them play at the high school fields. Only a few will play games under the lights, but some do.

In Eastern Washington, we frequently had JV games start as late as 6pm. But even starting at 5pm, it gets dark pretty early up north in the fall, so it ends up being a night game.

Of course now that I am in Western Washington, almost all less than varsity games start very early. And all 7th/8th grade games start at 3:45pm (which is why we are struggling to find officials to cover those games).

But reddevil19 still hasn't said whether they were JCs or JVs.

REPLY: Robert...he said so here.

Alumni is plural. Alumnus is singular.

That seems right to me, I don't think anything else really could be done.

Yeah, I suppose it's probably not something that could be undone, especially if there's nothing in the rules against it (but it still didn't seem quite fair). Although if you ask me, there ought to be a rule against Play-by-Play over the PA, if for not other reason than most of those I hear attempt it are horrible.

BTW: I fixed "alumni."

Ack! Missed that post entirely until someone else pointed it out, thanks. Junior College. In that case, not such impressive facilities. :cool:

I was so paranoid that others have better facilities than us that I hadn't even considered that possibility for what the "C" stood for. I was thinking Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Robert