Fire Teams/Coaches That 'Misinterpret' Rules

Rules are confusing, even for a smart guy.

The NCAA slapped LSU with a year of probation for its football program because of a major violation involving the recruitment of a junior college player as well as numerous minor infractions. When the football program attempted to explain itself, part of its excuse included a "misinterpretation" of the rules. Anybody who uses misinterpretation as an excuse for breaking rules should definitely be fired.

Rule misinterpretation seems to be a growing epidemic in sports, thanks mostly to Patriots coach Bill Belichick. During the fallout from Spygate in 2007, Belichick claimed he "misinterpreted' the rule about secretly taping opponents during games. Here's what the rule says:

"Any use by any club at any time, from the start to the finish of any game in which such club is a participant, of any communications or information-gathering equipment, other than Polaroid-type cameras or field telephones, shall be prohibited, including without limitation videotape machines, telephone tapping, or bugging devices, or any other form of electronic devices that might aid a team during the playing of a game."

That is pretty vague stuff. But then again, Belichick seems to have a hard time interpreting other things, like the rules of marriage (he allegedly cheated on his wife and divorced her in 2006).

Since 2007, several other coaches have "misinterpreted" rules:

• Ex-Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez, on numerous NCAA violations: "We're looking at it to see why we misinterpreted and why we made mistakes."
• New Jersey high school basketball coach Kevin Boyle on why he violated regulations that prohibit out-of-season workouts with a coach: “I misinterpreted the rule and didn’t check on it."
• Fullerton College men's tennis coach on why a Spanish player who had been a pro prior to his college career played for Fullerton: "I had no idea he made any money," Roger See said. "It's just a misinterpretation of the rules on the Spanish side and us not knowing what he had done on that side of the pond."

Most sports rules aren't very complicated, and since coaches aren't exactly Supreme Court justices, they aren't supposed to be interpreting what the rules mean or how they are applied. If a coach genuinely doesn't understand a rule, he should probably take the radical step of asking for clarification rather than just doing whatever he wants and dealing with the consequences later. For some reason nobody ever "misinterprets" a rule until they get caught breaking it, and nobody who is innocent has ever used the "misinterpretation" defense. So the defense (and those who use it) should be fired.