Regarding the post that a Coach had a letter saying the required equipment is not required in a scrimmage, I would have asked the Coach if I could have the letter or at least see who signed it from UIL. That is not consistent with any message I have heard from the UIL, TASO or in my case our Chapter leadership. Either way, I would have submitted a UIL incident report and described all of this and the team so that UIL can address.
Someone said it earlier, we should not let the fact that coaches have a say in selecting the crew that works their game dictate which rules we are going to enforce and not enforce.
If we all stand together across the State there is no issue.
Scrimmages are over now, but if I had a coach show me a letter that said something other than required equipment is OK for scrimmages, I’d say, “ OK. Enjoy the scrimmage. Hope you get what you need accomplished without officials. We’ll be leaving, now, unless you can get your team properly equipped.”
They can scrimmage however they want. But if they want our participation, then they need to fully and properly equip their players. We simply cannot accept the liability of participating in any activity where the players are not protected according to rule. The UIL can allow their members to conduct activities with less than full compliance, if they want. But, we are not responsible to the UIL, and the UIL has no jurisdiction over us. We can’t put ourselves at risk. They balk, we walk.
Robert
