We are well into league play now and we have a question from a veteran official.
Question: "If I am the R on the game do I have the coach sign the book, or is that the official scorers' duties?"
To address this question, we need to look in the Rulebook Rule 2 Officials and Their Duties:
Rule 2 Section 4 Article 5 states, "The referee shall: ...Verify with the head coach, prior to each contest, that all team members' uniforms and equipment are legal and will be worn properly, and that all participants will exhibit proper sporting behavior throughout the contest."
By the letter of the law you don't have to have them sign the official score book. Some officials choose to do this in their pregame with coaches and perhaps they are using it as a proxy of the verification deemed by the rulebook.
Furthermore, there is no pregame directive in the 2025-2027 NFHS Basketball Officials Manual to have the head coach sign the official scorebook. The Official's Manual basically reiterates what the Rulebook stated. In Section 1.5 Officials' Pregame Protocol it says, "1.5.3 Duties of the Referee...Verify with the head coach that team members are legally and properly equipped and that all participants are expected to exhibit proper sporting behavior."
That doesn't help us too much, but a further bit from the same section does stipulate that the referee is to specifically pick the official scorebook. Again from the same section, "1.5.3 Duties of the Referee...Designate the official timepiece and its operator, the official scorebook and the official scorer."
In practice, some official scorers will have the head coaches sign the book under the last player's name and number to guard against improperly adding players to the official scorebook. It is the responsibility of the scorer to notify game officials if there is impropriety. Rule 2 Section 11 Scorer's Duties states that" Rule 2-2: The scorer shall: ...Notify the nearer official when there is an infraction of the rules pertaining to submission of the roster, substitution or numbers of players."
Rules Gazette Staff Writers,
James Frazee and Dylan Koury
