Despite a report circulating on social media this week from District 10 radio personality Bob Greenburg that a survey sent out by the PIAA was returned in favor of a shot clock in high school basketball by both athletic directors and officials, the PIAA’s basketball steering committee voted not to recommend the shot clock for consideration to the main board at its meeting on Tuesday.

“Regarding basketball, the committee discussed it,” PIAA Executive Director Robert Lombardi said. “They did not forward a recommendation to the board to adopt the shot clock. They had four concerns — one, cost; two, operations of it and (third) training of not only the operator but the officials. The fourth one was a timeline of implementation. Obviously, this wouldn’t be done this school year coming. It doesn’t give anyone enough time to react. But is there a timeline in the future for that discussion? That was the result from (Tuesday), so now you all have it. It will be discussed as part of the report from our basketball steering committee to the board.”

The PIAA board, which next meets in mid-July at Penn State, could choose to ignore the recommendation of the steering committee, though that would go against the norm.

“Our steering committees are not the final say,” Lombardi said. “Our process is for the steering committees to meet, discuss and make recommendations to the board. Those recommendations are made to the board, and then the board takes action on them — up or down, in or out or whatever and then adopts the discussion of the minutes. That final say isn’t until our next board meeting.”

Two schools in Blair County, Tyrone and Williamsburg, have athletic directors that are also the head boys basketball coaches at their respective schools.

They voted opposite ways on the survey.

“I was not in favor of the shot clock. Maybe some of the scoreboards schools have already operate where it could just be an add-on to what you already have, but some don’t,” Williamsburg athletic director Jeff Detwiler said. “There’s going to be an upfront cost to installing the shot clocks — purchasing them, installing them — but then there’s also going to be finding someone every year to operate them. Then you get into training the person to operate them and training them on the rules of the shot clock and the fee of paying an extra game worker all plays into that.”

Lombardi said those types of concerns seemed to dominate conversation at the steering committee meeting more than anything related to the way basketball is played at Pennsylvania high schools.

“After listening to the conversation (Tuesday) around the table,” Lombardi said. “I don’t know if there is a fear. I think there’s a real issue coming from the grassroots people on costs and retrofitting their gyms and scoreboards that they have along with getting good, credible people trained. Because there’s a little bit to this — it isn’t just flick it on, flick it off. That training, along with adding a provision in the rulebook on how to handle scenarios that come up through the game and training our almost 5,000 registered basketball officials on how to use the clock are issues. That was a lot of the conversation that was brought up (Tuesday).”

Tyrone athletic director Luke Rhoades remembered filling out the survey toward the end of the school year and said it was “very simple and to the point.”

As was his answer.

“Yes,” Rhoades said. “I’m definitely in support of a shot clock.”

Rhoades’ answer was rooted more in how the game is played at the high school level.

“I just think it would help make the teams execute more precisely and more effectively on the offensive end,” Rhoades said. “But it would also reward teams that play good, solid defense. It’s tough to play defense for minutes on end. But for 35 seconds, you can play good, solid defense. I think it would make the game more enjoyable.”

Detwiler’s perspective came from his role as the Blue Pirates’ AD.

“As an athletic director, (cost) was the main reason,” Detwiler said. “It would definitely impact the game as well. The survey was sent to athletic directors, so I was basing my decision more as an athletic director.”