Another track and field uniform controversy
Another track and field meet, another uniform controversy.
This time, Reservoir's Kyle Mitchell was cited for wearing pants that had several Under Armour insignias on the waistband at Tuesday's Howard County championship meet. The national high school rule book, which has so many strange rules that have caused more weird situations in recent months, says that just one insignia can be on the waistband or the athlete can be disqualified.
Another local coach called Mitchell on it and tried to have him disqualified. But an appeals committee at the meet said that since a judge for the triple jump didn't call it at the actual event, everything was fine. Reservoir won the meet by 17 points, and it turned out that a DQ wouldn't have hurt the Gators much.
The question that us media folk asked Reservoir coach Phil Rogers afterward was how could his team's pants have several insignias if it was a violation of a national rule. The answer: Mitchell was jumping with the compression pants serving as his uniform pants.
Maybe it's time to bring lawyers to track meets?
-- Jeff Seidel
Comments
As a high school official for four different sports, track and field not one of them, I can tell you that the National Federation of State High School Associations tries very hard to ensure conformity.
In basketball, for example, you can only wear sweatbands in a certain area of your arm, head bands must be white, black or a team color and everyone on the team must have the same color, no jewelry can be worn, shirts must be tucked in and pants pulled up to the waist, etc. Baseball has similar rules, volleyball, lacrosse and so forth.
I wouldn't say the high school rule book has some strange rules. They are very simple and not hard to follow. The problem is, so many coaches in so many sports don't take the time to read the rule book. That goes beyond what the athletes wear. And it also goes for parents and the media. I've come across so many media types that don't know basic rules that it is shameful.
Some high school football coaches this past season didn't know that the Fed outlawed the horse collar tackle and those that did know very often didn't what the Fed considered a horse collar or how it should and would be called.
Many high school rules are different from what the pros or even colleges use and that causes some confusion because people see the pro rules and when a high school official properly applies a high school rule, those fans don't realize the difference.
The rules books are available from the Federation website and all coaches should have the rule books. No excuse for breaking a federation rule written in clear and precise language.
Posted by: doug | May 12, 2010 1:44 PM
Another issue may not be coaches, and in most cases it is, but remember we are dealing with kids, and they will sometimes just do their own thing.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 13, 2010 10:04 AM
Cheap way to try to get a win. This just happened in Cali where the coah who lost pointed out a uniform violation and his team was awarded the points for the win. Cheap.
Posted by: Sean Fox | May 13, 2010 11:23 AM