Officious pricks that run high school athletics for $500, Alex

See "pine tar". Wait until it matters, then lower the boom.

 

agree that it's a dick move ... but also assume that, like most states, there is a rule book the coaches can read through. there's gonna be a section on uniforms. before new unis are ordered, a coach oughta read through it real quick like. just sayin.

 

It's very clearly spelled out in the rule book, and as per the story, they were warned several times about it. And CHOSE to continue violating the rules. Tough shit.

As usual in cases like this, their defense is not "we didn't break the rules" but rather "somebody should have told us about it earlier."

They're also quite lucky, because if the refs were really pissed about it, they could have called a technical foul for each player wearing the illegal uniforms, as they entered the game.

The reason of course they had to put in these rules is some of the more idiotic uniforms NIKE is trying to push, similar to some of the football uniforms, with huge swaths of different light/dark colors across the jersey, to the point it's almost impossible to tell who is the home team and who is the away team.

It's not like there is no reason for the rules.

Taking the crayons out of the hands of the NIKE uniform designers is a good thing.

It's not like this information is hard to find -- it took me about 20 seconds on Google:

http://www.nfhs.org/core/contentmanager/uploads/2008_09_Basketball_Uniforms.pdf

 

I've always said these people are the worst on the planet.
I now require no further proof.

 

Starman, as I read the story, it wasn't that the refs were pissed or not pissed, it was that the IHSA employee who runs the basketball tournament told the refs to call a technical. If a tech hadn't been called all season (even as the IHSA was communicating, perhaps one-way, with the school), I'd guess the refs could tell the difference between teams.
That said, the unis are borderline ugly, but who knew that Mr. Blackwell was alive and well and at the IHSA.

 

Another reason the technical was assessed in the postseason after having let it go throughout the regular season: Different officials.

If Illinois is anything like North Carolina, the officials are intentionally moved out of their normal assigned regions in an attempt to keep everyone from getting too comfortable. It's a good rule, though a little inconvenient in terms of travel for officials.

It's entirely possible that the official who assessed the uniform technical is more stringent about that particular rule and enforced it on a team that had been getting away with grey-area violations throughout the season.

 

That was the National Federation rule last year. It was changed to just a technical on the coach this year.

 

Also, there's no $500 clue on Jeopardy anymore.

 

If they wear wide stripes, we'll wear wide stripes. It'll be anarchy!

 

Don't blame the game officials for doing what they were told to do. And losing by one point or by 20 points is irrelevant. The game might have played out completely different.

And the losing team was ahead by 10 in the fourth quarter and choked it away. So obviously that one point at the start of the game didn't affect the outcome... But it does make a great story.

One last point, the visiting jerseys weren't too colorful... but the assigned home team has to wear white and the assigned visiting team must wear non-white... that's the rule. The coach knows the rule (one would hope) and therefore, tough cookies.

 

An IHSA clarification on the ruling. http://www.ihsa.org/announce/2008-09/2009-03-23.htm

And to weigh in, I often have criticized the IHSA in my work, frowning on class expansion, heavy-handed meddling and many other draconian measures taken by the much-too-powerful board of directors.

But the organization is 100 percent correct in this matter; change your damn uniforms, Lawndale.

 

It's passive-aggressive race-carding.

"Whitey's trying to keep us down by not allowing us to express ourselves through our uniforms. He doesn't understand our culture. Nobody's telling us what kind of uniforms we can wear."