John,
Are YOU willing to take the phone calls when people start calling smile fouls? I'm not.
That part of the rules is 100% right. When it happens, it's either an honest mistake or someone trying to take advantage of the rules (a sportsmanship issue). If you want to start penalizing an honest mistake with ball-in-hand, then you'll also have to start taking the phone calls for the scorekeeper fouls, the ones where the scorekeeper forgot to mark the time out on the scoresheet.
Then, it's only a matter of time before you realize you've accomplished nothing, because those same coaches who would take advantage of the current rules will be doing the same thing with your new rules. Before you know it, you'll be taking calls for standing up fouls, chin in palm fouls, hand in pocket fouls, drinking your beer with your left hand fouls, scratching your ass fouls, and my personal favorite, wiping your nose fouls.
The other part of the rules, concerning aid from someone who is not the coach, may eventually go away. As I mentioned, it's a remnant from the time where you had one coach for the entire match. Unfortunately, the new manual is already in print and the next update won't come for two years, so you'll have to live with the two coaches during one time out calls. But look on the bright side, that will be extremely rare (never happened here since the rules were changed), and even when it does it will probably be a nice relief from all the cracking your knuckles foul calls you'll be taking.
Phil
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When is a coach illegal and a foul?
Posted - 04/24/2008 : 12:26:00 AM
