What happens next? What does that mean?

[dansaintandre]

I write to suggest that we might find ways to avoid many subjective calls through systematic definition of events in terms that people are already familiar with other that are easy to describe to an average observer. First define a behavior and then explain when that behavior is legal and illegal. Consider "illegal contact" might be any contact below the waist, on the head or neck, or from behind. There is no waffle room here. Did player A touch player B -- yes or no? Was it behind, below the waist or to the head or neck -- yes or no? If both are yes, then the contact is illegal by definition. The only decision involves when is this illegal behavior a personal foul vs. a technical foul.

During a recent HS/JV turnament, I survived a plague in the form of questions about various infractions "how could that be a hold ... he only used his stick" "how could that be a slash ... he caught him on the shoulder" This list was endless.

When I was a college fencer (yes, swords and tights) we kept score using a "touch against" method where the fewest touches was the winner. Several years later, they switched to a "touch for" system [along with other minor changes] where the most touches was the winner. This happened to make the sport easier to understand. I think lacrosse might benefit from some changes to make things easier to understand.

Consider that many know "holding" from football.
Lacrosse might use a similar definition. Many also
know "hooking" and "high sticking" from hockey. Lacrosse
might adopt these as well. We could also clarify the gray areas such as "late hit" -- is that "interferrence" or is
it "illegal body check" -- it seems that football handles this in a straightforward manner. Was the contact avoidable or was it due to momentum. If it was avoidable, it was therefore unnecessary and "unnecessary roughness" prefails.

What about the infamous "push with possession" -- might this also be "illegal body check"? [See my discussion of illegal check elsewhere]

Let me illustrate how some of these suggestions might affect calls that are hard to understand today. White has
the ball. Black defender reaches over white's shoulder trying to check the stick. In the process of recovering his stick, black makes minor, incidental contact with white's helmet. I know many officials that might let this pass. Others would call it a slash. Either way, the fans will complain that it was not one or the other. Under the clarifying definitions I describe, this might be "high sticking". The bottom line is we want to avoid contact to the head and neck. "high sticking" would draw attention to the behavior that we wish to control and eliminate a judgement call in favor of something more objective.

When white grasps black's jersey, arm, stick etc. That might be "holding". When white uses his crosse for the same purpose, that might be "hooking".

[stevesmith]

After just reading the rule book from cover to cover for the first time, I have to agree that lacrosse could benefit by borrowing some of the more commonly known terms used in other sports. I realize that this would go against all traditions of the game, but if the powers that be really want lacrosse to grow, it has to first be understood by those not familiar with the game. Using terminology consistent with the more popular sports would be a good first step.

Read the chapter in the rule book regarding holding. That is enough to confuse anyone!

[dansaintandre]

Steve,
Someone told me that lacrosse "holding" is a combination of "Hooking" from hockey, "holding" from football and other sports, and "interferrence" from other sports. One point that was hard for me to adjust to was the fact that one need not grasp anything to be guilty of holding in lacrosse.

~~~ Dan 0;-D

[SIDRef]

Fellas,

These are some very good points. I believe they'd make a very good story for Officiating.com.

Could you please put you questions/concerns in a brief, concise yet specific format?

If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected]

Bob Lowe
Lacrosse Editor
Officiating.com

[ChuckElias]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents to the topic here. While I agree that the lacrosse rulebook is not written particularly well, I don't think that the names of the offenses are the problem. Changing "holding" to "hooking" is not going to do much to foster understanding of the game. Every game has its own terminology. Fans learn the terminology as they go. In lacrosse, a personal foul is more severe than a technical foul. But in basketball, a technical foul is the more severe of the two. Should we change "personal" and "technical" so that they're the same as basketball, just b/c that's how most fans are more familiar with basketball? Just my opinion, but I don't think so.

As far as the slash call is concerned, there has to be some judgment involved. If A1 checks B1's stick, and then accidently follows through so that his stick slightly contacts B1's helmet, what do you have? Do you really want to throw a flag for that? Not me. If A1 shoots the ball and the follow through from his shot causes his stick to contact defender B9 on the leg, what do you have? Not a flag, that's for sure.

The rules are intentionally written so as to allow the officials to exercise some judgment as to whether the contact constitutes a foul or not. That's why a body check is not illegal if the player being checked turns his back while the check is being delivered. Sure there's contact on his back (and we do want to limit that, I agree), but HE caused it so we shouldn't penalize the player delivering the check.

The same is true of the other examples you gave. Is a late hit an illegal body check or interference? Is contact from behind an illegal body check or a push? These are not "confusing" situations; they simply require you to exercise some judgment as to the severity of the contact.

If you're a new official, you just need to get out there and do games (although if you're in New England like me, I'd suggest you wait for Spring). The more games you do, the more situations you see, the easier it becomes to see the difference between a push and an illegal body check.

In the meantime, post rules questions or funky situations here and ask your local fellow officials as well. This may sound cynical, but don't worry about what the fans understand. 90% of them will never understand the rules, regardless of how they're written.

Chuck

[SIDRef]

Excellent rebuttal. One of the things I was going to cover was downgrading. We have this option and can apply appropriately to a given situation.

[dansaintandre]

You skirted what might be the root cause of all of this discussion. The lacrosse rules are written and maintained by the coaches with minimal input from officials at any level. During my work in industry, I find a huge number of situations where it works best to inform someone "here is a behavior; here is how to look for it; here are details to look for" Once the person has a high success rate in seeing each such behavior, then and only then do we introduce value judgements on the goodness or suitability of that behavior.

When applied to lacrosse, I encourage each official to write out a description of WHAT TO LOOK FOR; HOW DO YOU SEE IT; candidate behaviors for each of the possible infractions --- especially those that have a lot of interpretation associated with them. Once you have a written description of a behavior, next make a list of when that behavior is "illegal". If you find you must alter your description of the behavior to identify an illegal situation, you need to clean up your description of player actions.

Can we honestly say that we expect a large amount of agreement among lacrosse officials on these basic descriptions? Do you expect agreement on when each behavior is "illegal"? I think most will have a squishy answer and there-in lies my primary point:

=== WE CAN DO BETTER IN WRITING THINGS DOWN ===

My other point follows closely behind the first:

=== OFFICIALS NEED TO START WRITING THINGS DOWN SO THAT
MORE OFFICIALS USE A MORE OBJECTIVE APPROACH. WHEN WE ARE MORE CONSISTENT AND EFFECTIVE, THE RULES WILL FOLLOW ===

[ChuckElias]

Originally posted by dansaintandre
The lacrosse rules are written and maintained by the coaches with minimal input from officials at any level.

Dan,

I'm not sure where you get your information, but I think the above statement is just not true. I'm looking at both my National Federation (High School) and NCAA books right now. And I see well-known officials on both rules committees. Coaches certainly have input on what rules changes to make, but I would disagree with your statement that officials have minimal input.

I encourage each official to write out a description of WHAT TO LOOK FOR; HOW DO YOU SEE IT; candidate behaviors for each of the possible infractions --- especially those that have a lot of interpretation associated with them.

This is done in the rulebook. That's what some of the Approved Rulings are.

=== WE CAN DO BETTER IN WRITING THINGS DOWN ===

Maybe that's true, Dan, but it's not really going to help a whole lot, b/c you rarely see the exact same thing twice; especially when we're talking about those "gray" situations that are open to interpretation.

=== OFFICIALS NEED TO START WRITING THINGS DOWN SO THAT
MORE OFFICIALS USE A MORE OBJECTIVE APPROACH. WHEN WE ARE MORE CONSISTENT AND EFFECTIVE, THE RULES WILL FOLLOW ===

I don't mean to be rude, Dan, but did you even read my last post? The rules (some of them, at least) are purposely subjective. They have to allow for officials' judgment. If there was no judgment involved, you wouldn't need officials at all. You can write down all the objective descriptions you want, but there will always be exceptions (brushing the helmet following a legal stick check) and this is where the officials use their judgment. Just out of curiosity, what would your objective description of a slash to the head be? How much force is allowed before you throw the flag? How is the official supposed to judge your objective standard while the players are running by during a clear? I'm not trying to be a smart@@@, but can you see the impossibility of an "objective" standard?

I agree completely that officials need to be more consistent. They need to know and enforce the rules that are written. But as long as there are human referees, you will never get an "objective" approach to officiating lacrosse. And you shouldn't, in my opinion.

Chuck

[stevesmith]

While I appreciate the enthusiasm generated from my original post, I think things went in a different direction than I intended. As a 16 year football official, I can certainly understand the need for objective judgement. It's amazing how good common sense will get you through many tough situations, regardless of the sport you're officiating.

The intent in my first post here was meant to point out just how difficult lacrosse rules specifically are to comprehend compared to other sports. Most any first year official can call pass interference in football, or goaltending in basketball, or a hand ball in soccer. But I consider myself a pretty smart individual with a total of 26 years officiating experience in different sports, and as a first year lacrosse official, trying to apply what's written in the rule book to what happens on the field is as difficult an undertaking as any sport I've ever done!

Although I never played the game, I've spent the last three years watching my son play, so fortunately, I have a pretty good grasp of the rules. Now, as with any sport, I have to learn to apply what I know in the appropriate ways at the appropriate times. It appears that I am lucky enough to have found the right group of people to teach me.

I will repeat my initial statements, that lacrosse is not an easy game to learn for the common uneducated spectator, as compared to other sports. I don't have any specific thoughts at the moment, but I still believe that there are some concessions that could be made to improve the popularity of Lacrosse without having to change the integrity of the game.

[ChuckElias]

Originally posted by stevesmith
as a first year lacrosse official, trying to apply what's written in the rule book to what happens on the field is as difficult an undertaking as any sport I've ever done!

Steven,

I will be MORE than happy to agree with the above comment. Lacrosse is exceptionally difficult to officiate, at first. I never played either, but had officiating experience in basketball, which helped me immensely. Flag/no flag? Whistle/play on? Shot/pass? Offside/not offside? Way too much going on too fast for any first year official to think about.

lacrosse is not an easy game to learn for the common uneducated spectator. [snip] there are some concessions that could be made to improve the popularity of Lacrosse without having to change the integrity of the game.

As far as uneducated spectators go, they will never understand the rules enough to comment on them intelligently. With your own officiating experience, you probably already know that by now. Fans (in any sport) don't really care about what the rule is, they only care that you enforce them in their team's favor.

As far as increasing its popularity, all you have to do is figure out a way to make it easier to watch on TV. I mean that sincerely. If ESPN would show 20 college lax games a year (2 games/week, Tues night and Sat night, plus the current Final Four coverage), and do it in a way that it was easy to watch, with close ups on the guys who are making the plays, lax would be the fastest growing sport in the country. Maybe it is already, I don't know.

Chuck

[stevesmith]

"...lax would be the fastest growing sport in the country. Maybe it is already, I don't know."

My full-time job is youth sports dealing with over 20,000 kids a year. I agree, if lacrosse isn't the fastest growing sport, it's close. We had about 100 kids play our first season 3 years ago. We are expecting close to 400 kids playing this Spring. My personal opinion is that here in Texas, lacrosse is currently at approximately the same position and level of popularity that soccer was 20-25 years ago. Soccer is now the biggest youth sport in town, if not the country. Hopefully, lacrosse will be that big very soon.

[ChuckElias]

Best of luck to your league, and also to you during the upcoming season. Take care

Chuck

[dansaintandre]

Perhaps I have a germ of an idea to address the topics found in this thread...

There are two issues:
1. How to effectively officiate lacrosse games.
2. How to == learn to == effectively officiate lacrosse games.

"The leagues" [aka, players, coaches, teams, etc] make the rules. The officials are their to moderate and coordinate each game according to those rules. With luck, we get input to the rule making process so that we have rules that are enforceable in an objective, or minimally subjective, manner. Any officials candidate must learn the rules -- however they are -- at any point in time.

Lacrosse is a very fast sport. Period.

Anyone can watch a group of players chasing around doing things. After all, many of us are "spectators" at heart. Learning to watch and critically assess that same group of players within the context of any set of rules is hard. Period.

It seems that the statements I made to open this thread might be better stated as a plea for help in the process of learning how to watch and critically assess "the fastest game on two feet".

[dansaintandre]

Yes, I read you comments about "purposely subjective rules".
I agree that the game demands subjectivity in several aspects of play. However, I believe that we do ourselves and the game a dis-service with the way we implement that subjectivity today.

I think the game would be better if we had a clean, objective statement saying "... if you do x,y,z we call these behaviors HOLDING ..." This statement does not say anything about the legality of that behavior, it only states clearly and objectively what constitutes a HOLD.

In a separate section of the rules, one then says something like "... HOLDING is permitted under p,q,r situations..."
and "... under d,e,f situations HOLDING is an TECHNICAL FOUL infraction ..." and "... under a,b,c situations HOLDING is a PERSONAL FOUL infraction ..."

The subjectivity now consists in identifying one of the listed situations. Rules annotations now can explain and clarify those situations. First-100-game officials can be taught to see the behavior separate from seeing the situations -- even from the safety of the stands. Once they are effective with "seeing", they can begin to worry about deciding if what they saw was an infraction.

I contrast the approach described above with today's learn-it-all-at-once approach that borders on teaching someone how to write a best selling novel.