What you got?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Personal foul has to be for contact. Unsporting is for non-contact acts.

What about contact acts vs. non-players? Like, say, a player slugs an official. That can't be a PF, can it? So it must be UC.

I think that's likely what you had in the previously stated scenario: contact by a player vs. a non-player that might be a personal foul (unnecessary roughness) if committed by player vs. player, but would have to be either unsportsmanlike conduct or nothing if committed by a player vs. a sub in the opposing bench area.

If the player(s) in the bench area are deemed to be participating illegally by interfering with play even if out of bounds, do they then instantly become players & hence eligible to be personally fouled? Could the same be true of a trainer, coach, towel boy...?

So I turned to the Fed rules for clarif'n, and came up with...mud. I see unnecessary roughness (contact that is unnecessary and may tend to promote roughness) is identified, like most personal fouls, in terms of contact with an "opponent"...and the rules never define "opponent". I was hoping either the Team Designation or Participation provisions would clarify the matter, but unless someone can explain otherwise, they don't. It is possible for nonplayers to illegally participate by committing acts against an "opponent", but it doesn't seem to say anything about vice versa in cases where the opponent is a player. One might assume that if X is an opponent of Y, Y must be an opponent of X, but that's a thin reed to lean on in this case. And if makes a difference here because whether the action by the player who has unintentionally left the field and gotten embroiled in a situation among the other team's subs is ruled a personal foul or an unsportsmanlike act matters in terms of penalty enforcement. My hunch would be that any fouls by partisans of either team in that situation would have to be considered UC rather than PF.