Facemask?
 

Hoops ref here...

Having a debate on another MB about an IHSAA SemiState game...

I did not see the play in question but.....Guy stated that grabbing any opening of a helmet is facemasking?

The play in question, the defender grabbed the BACK of the offensive players helmet..

Is this legal? Could you provide a rule refernce for this hoops official....

Thanks!

Illegal!

I actually made this call 3 years ago as a Referee in a Thanksgiving day game.

The away team was punting deep in its own endzone and the home team needed the ball badly down by 6 and less than a minute to play. I hated to see it come down to a call but the punter scrambled a bit (he was about to take an intentional safety) and the defender nearly ripped his head off by grabbing the back of the helmet opening.

I called a 15-yard facemask and it gave the away team a first down. They ran the clock out and won the game.

You need to have the courage to make the call when it's there. I slept just fine that night!

It's in rule 9. I believe under section 3 or 4 where you have the facemask foul defined. It mentions the helmet opening.

Just as ljudge said, grasping any helmet opening is illegal. I called it once this season when a linebacker had a running back by the back of the helmet. He looked like he was trying to unscrew his head and find his brain. :eek:

Yep, safety issue. Any opening will work.

Many coaches seem to think that if you touch the helmet, it is a FM. A player can grab the side of the helmet, or the back and they want a FM. They are just "wanting something," which is understandable.

NFHS 9-4-2h Grasp an opponent's face mask or any edge of a helmet opening.

The reason it's called "grabbing the face mask" is that historically, doing just that was made illegal decades earlier. It wasn't until the 1970s that NCAA and later Fed realized the mask wasn't the only handle by which someone's head could be grasped. That occurred shortly after wearing a 4-pt. chin strap attachment became mandatory. Before that, grabbing the side or top openings of the helmet might've simply resulted in the helmet's coming off without the head wearing it being jerked in any direction.

Robert