National Federation Provides Online Rulebooks & Casebooks
The National Federation of State High School Associations establishes the rules for all high school sports and publishes the rulebooks and casebooks for coaches and officials. When I was asked to make a presentation to high school baseball players a few weeks ago, I turned to the internet to find a resource for high school baseball rules and recent interpretations since I did not have a current baseball rulebook.
Rule changes and related interpretations were available on the NF website for 2006 and 2007. These documents were very helpful and as I dug deeper, I discovered that the National Federation now has online rulebooks. For just $20 per year, you have access to all the NF rulebooks and casebooks.
Register and pay for full access to all the online rulebooks and casebooks by going to http://www.nfhs.org/. Click on “Sign Up” in the Members Only box on the upper right center of the website. It will take you through 2-3 screens where you fill in various forms registering and finally using your credit card to purchase your membership. The cheapest option is $20.
The following rulebooks and casebooks are available organized by season:
Fall Sports: Field Hockey, Football, Soccer, Spirit Rules, and Volleyball
Winter Sports: Ice Hockey, Wrestling, Basketball, and Swimming and Diving
Spring Sports: Baseball, Lacrosse, Softball, and Track and Field
Coaches and officials can also join their respective National Federation Association for a fee slightly greater than the $20 fee that I mentioned earlier. Additional benefits come with these memberships. Remember also that all of these fees are tax-deductible.
Did you ever wonder what the lacrosse rules say about whacking the opponent with the ball with your stick? Are you considering officiating another sport? Let the rulebooks help you decide.
April 17, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Shawn, in addition to being able to purchase on-line rule books, afficianodos of particular sports can go on line and dowload a program ($30.00) that will give them the last five years of the Naional Federation of State High School Association Part 1 and Part 2 examintions for a particular sport which many local boards use as part of their evaluation process. The software is geared for high school officials & umpires and they have different versions for football, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, and soccer. Each version has 1000 questions which encompasses the last 5 years worth of National Federation Part I & Part II Exams. Also included in their software is an electronic version of the National Federation Rules Book and Case Book. Full text searching is also available which allows you to search any of the manuals for any word desired.
Because it is a data base, you can select the questions you want to see. For instance, if you want to see all the questions that relate to Rule 6 in NFHS Baseball rule book, you can set your search to look up those questions. Dead ball questions are my nemesis, so I use the search tool to bring up all the questions invoIving dead balls over the past five years. A counter in the system will tell me what percentage of the questions in the current session I have aswered correctly; It will also give me a running total of all the questions I have answered correctly since I last cleared the counter. I try to go in and answer a hundred questions each week, and I clear the counter once a year. That means I see each of the questions for the last 5 years about 5 times. That is good review for the exam we have to take each year before we are allowed to umpire games for the Eastern Maine Baseball Umpires Association. When I miss a question, the program asks me if I would like to be taken to the rule in the rulebook or the case in the casebook where the correct answer can be found. It doesn’t get any better than that. If you are iterested in learning more about the software, point your browser to http://www.rules-study. com
February 24, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I would like to get a National Federation Rulebook for Baseball. Can you help?
November 20, 2008 at 1:52 pm
What are the National Federation of High School Field Hockey Rules regarding substitution area field markers?