Not enough bench, what to do?
 

I work a facility that has a pretty short bench. With larger teams there is not enough room for everyone to sit down. It is pretty close to the court, but some refs make the kids sit on the floor. The bench ends about 6 or more feet from the end line. It seems to me it would be safer to let them stand at the end of the bench, but this is deemed to be sacrilege. I know the rule says they must be seated on the bench, but.....have you ever had to deal with this situation and how did you resolve it?

Haven`t had it yet.I would make them sit and the extra space becomes non playable area.

Have them sit on the floor. Better to have them seated (which is the intent of the rule) then try to figure out who gets to stand, which can open up a can of worms.

Felix-I'm right about making the extension of the bench non-playable area correct?

Yes the extra players will need to be seated on the floor and it will be an extension of the b bench which means it's a non-playable area.

Correct

Is the "bench" a set of bleachers? If so, I've had similar situations where the players who couldn't fit in the front row (the bench) would sit directly behind the bench in the second row of the bleachers. Typically they were the second or third stringers.

I've also worked in places where the benches are chairs. When there are more players than chairs I have allowed players to stand behind the bench. May not be allowed by rule but if the benches are close to the court I'd rather not have inattentive players (those who won't see playing time unless the 12 players ahead of them all were injured) sitting on the floor at the end of the bench.

I saws this happen one time last year. HOME team had more players than chairs.

How can the home team not know how many chairs to set up...

I asked the home coach to get a few more chairs...

The chairs for a bench is common where I work. I normally have the host school find more chairs. If not, I have the players behind the chairs (which I do allow for standing)? Why? I would rather have the players standing in a non-playable area than be sitting on the floor in a potentially playable area. The last thing we, as officials, need is to have a player sitting on the floor with a clipboard taking stats (as many bench players do), and a player on the floor chases a ball towards the bench area. A seated player on the bench/chair is at a high enough level to see the bench player and potential avoid them. If the bench player is sitting on the floor, the player may not see them, chase the ball and run into that player, potentially injuring one or both of them. Having the players standing behind the bench is a better option from a liability standpoint.

The other issue with the players sitting at the end of the bench on the floor is creep. They tend to creep forward towards the court, much like standing players will do, when allowed to stand. Having them stand behind the bench puts a barrier (the bench) between them and the court.

Obviously, having the right number of chairs is the best solution.

I have had situations where one team does not have enough chairs, and the other has extra open chairs. We asked the team to take chairs with them so everyone has a chair when they switch sides at the end of the set.

Most places using chairs don't have a problem with the number of chairs though, and if they do initially, they find more.