When Did This Rule Go Into Effect

[Ed Hickland]

Originally Posted by ajmc

Did I strike a nerve Theisey? You're absolutely right, I don't know a thing about "your crew", or, " the way we operate" but YOUR comment, "and I know they use that rule/definition (NCAA) in our high school games", was not the smartest or most assuring thing you've offered, unless of course you work HS games in Texas or Mass., in which case the NCAA code would be appropriate.

There are different rules for different levels, and if you choose to work different levels, congratulations, but it's your responsibility to apply the appropriate rule to the level your working, even though it might be somewhat inconvenient to deal with multiple codes.

Hey ajmc, Theisey made an excellent point. Think about it. NFHS puts out a publication listing rules differences between NCAA and NFHS and if you notice NFHS 9-2-3d is not on that list which means there is agreement on this rule. However, the wording of the rule is different between the codes and that is largely because NFHS has a philosophy to keep the rule book as simple and concise as possible.

For this one rule NCAA code does a much better and clearer explanation. In fact, there are a number of rules where the NCAA verbose wordings work well in helping to understand the rules.

Nowhere did Theisey say the crew enforced different rules but they do use the NCAA wording to explain the rules.

Quite frankly I have a problem with officials who live in a cocoon with the rules. These days we are often confronted with "Sunday" or "Saturday" rules and the more you understand the similarities and differences and can explain them, the better official you are.