What’s The Call?

At the conclusion of every high school football season my wife and I try to make the trip to Pocatello to take in some of the championship games at the ICCU Dome.  We always enjoy our time there even if none of our local teams are involved in the game.  We often end up sitting near fans that are far more invested in the game than we are.  That was the case this year as we watched the 3A championship game.  One fan seated behind us was particularly vocal.  Not really in a negative way but talked non-stop and had a wide range of opinions.  On one specific play the receiver for his favored team made an amazing diving catch.  Upon landing on the turf the officials blew the play dead.  The fan behind us was flabbergasted that the play was ruled dead because the player was not touched.  His exact words were, “he wasn't touched! He could have got up and ran.”  The fan had mistakenly applied an NFL rule to a high school game.  Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this interaction was the fact that this fan mentioned several times that he had played in the dome when he was in high school just seven or eight years ago.  He had actually played the sport recently enough that no major rule changes had taken place but had himself forgotten some of them.  This got me thinking about how many rules do I get wrong?  I attend dozens of high school sporting events every year.  During those games I have heard all sorts of things yelled at refs and I am ashamed to admit that I have been guilty of this myself.  With all of this in mind I have decided to take a look at some of the most misunderstood rules in high school sports.  This will be a semi regular series that's purpose is to help educate fans on some of the calls made by officials at our local games that may help ease tension.  With the fall sports all wrapped up I figured that I would start with basketball and see how things go.  I am not an expert but have done my best to find the most accurate information available and have talked to several officials in preparing this series.

I started by taking a poll from officials asking what they saw as the most misunderstood calls in the game of basketball.  I got several different answers but one of the most common was “over the back”.  If you have attended any basketball game from little league to the NBA you have undoubtedly heard this phrase yelled in the stands or perhaps by a coach or player during a rebound.  The individuals that you will not hear use that phrase are the referees.  That is because over the back is not a foul.  One official even made the tongue and cheek comment “there is no violation for being taller than your opponent.  In fact it's encouraged.”  All jokes aside however when it comes to rebounding, fouls are based on contact and displacement.  If there is unreasonable contact or one player displaces another then it is a violation.  Simply being taller or jumping higher than the player in front of you and rebounding the ball is perfectly legal.  On a related subject when one player boxes out another for a rebound they are not allowed to displace the other player.  In simple terms a box out is holding a position. You are not allowed to push another player off of their position even if it's with the use of the lower body. 

The next violation that we will discuss is the backcourt violation.  This has been called by groups of officials as the most misapplied rule in the game.  This violation comes down to three points of contact for the dribbler only.  The three points of contact that we are referring to in this instance are both feet and the ball.  All three points must cross the midcourt line then one of the three must retreat to the backcourt to have a violation.  Again this only applies to the dribbler.  In the case of a stationary player who is holding the ball with one foot in the front court and one in the backcourt all that player has to do to commit a violation is pick up the backcourt foot and then set it back down in the backcourt.  Even though that foot never made contact with the front court once it leaves the ground it is considered in the front court.

This is just a start for this series.  In the future we will look at some other calls such as reaching, illegal screens, traveling, three seconds and many many more.