Ah, Valentine's Day. A day of love for one another and of hearts and of the colors red and pink and of technical fouls. What?!
Last week, the Burke High School (Nebraska) girls basketball team received a technical foul for breaking the rule that mandates white as the jersey color for home teams.
The girls, instead, donned pink jerseys in a fundraising effort. Despite the technical, their hearts were certainly in the right place as they auctioned off their uniforms after the game for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Yes, I know. It doesn't seem quite right, does it?
Well, the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) mandates in Rule 4-3 that home teams wear "White" and that away teams wear "Dark". And that if this rule is not followed, one technical must be called against the offending team's head coach. So it's pretty clear.
But for basketball officials, in cases like these, they are placed in a no-win position.
Not calling a technical and not following the rules, they face the ire of their leaders and of their governing athletic associations.
Calling a technical and they face a PR problem that officials don't have hearts. They do. Seriously, I assure you they do.
The NFHS can show a little love themselves simply by changing one word in Rule 4-3 on the home team equation: from "White" to "Light".
What do you think? Full story is here.
BTW-Burke lost by a relatively wide margin but won where it counted, managing to raise $2,600 for their pink jerseys.
Posted by Jim Kirk, CEO/President of Ump-Attire.com and avid fan of sports and sports officials everywhere. Find Jim on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
I understand what they were doing. I understand why Fed has white, period. I agree with the officials to award a tech.
ReplyDeleteIf a school wants to do something like this I would contact the state and get a waiver for a game. If the state says OK, they all is good.
Its like the Seattle, WA football officials from a couple years ago that used pink whistles without the permission by the state. There were all kinds of problems including the association losing playoff games.
ReplyDeleteI remember when this story broke. The only issue I had was the technical was issued after the AD from the visiting school told his coach to complain at the halftime break and the technical was issued after the intermission, instead of at the start of the contest, which would have been proper.
ReplyDeleteWe had this similar issue last year with Central Catholic HS (Modesto, CA) was wearing light pink as their home uniforms. I too have never had this issue in the previous 27 years I have been a Basketball Official, It turns out one of the players mother was recovering from Breast Cancer.
ReplyDeleteI asked the opposing head coach if he had an issue with it during pregame warmups, He stated he had no issue with it, we also contacted the home AD and informed him that this is a violation of the rule next time he need to gain prior approval from the CIF and/or the league commissioner so they can contact the game officials and let them know.
We did NOT issue a "T" a good time was had by everyone and in pregame introductions CCHS gave pink headband and wristbands to the visiting schools players. I did file a report to the Commissioner and left it in their hands, we were NOT disciplined for not issuing a Technical Foul and I was assigned to work section playoff games as I normally do.
Floyd, it sounds like you handled that very well. Thanks for sharing your story for others to see.
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