What's Wrong With This Picture

[hawk65]

I've heard several excuses by experienced officials why they don't enforce this rule on the HS level, and all of those excuses come from officials who also do college level:

1) "I heard [official] didn't get any more [D1 conference] assignments after he tried to enforce this at a game."
2) "Don't go looking for trouble."
3) "Knee pads don't protect from knee injuries so it is no big deal." (Makes about as much sense as saying shoulder pads don't prevent a QB from getting a sore arm so QB's shouldn't be required to wear shoulder pads.)

Short pants and non-coverage of knees by knee pads is a problem in our area and it stems from a dismissive attitude at the top of our association and the region outside our association's service area.