A Coach's Plea to Officials: Allow the Gather Step

While scouting an upcoming opponent this past winter, I caught a video clip that I jokingly referred to as “High School Basketball in a Nutshell.” A player dribbled into a crisp Euro Step, driving off his right foot and up off his left to the rim to score. As the camera panned back towards center court, a group of fans threw their hands in the air and did the travel dance, waving their arms around in a circle vigorously to show how the official clearly missed an obvious travel. Except it wasn’t a travel, obviously. But the current conversation about the gather step in the NBA Playoffs brought me back to moments like that. Over the past decade, we’ve seen the Euro Step become a universally legal move. Over time, officials realized that it was the same as a traditional, "one-two" layup, just with different timing and direction. I believe that it’s time that high school officials allow the gather step (or zero step) on all plays where a player is on the move a