BTW, I terminated another game yesterday after making everyone wait 30 minutes. My schedule was tight, but the coaches were initally OK with shortened halves. Then we got more lightning. This is annoying.
I'll let Mother Nature know you aren't happy with the way she is keeping the planet from turning into one giant volcano.
Nisl says "all efforts should be made to play the game". Also once the game starts the referee only should be making the decision. I'd not listen to coaches "good intentions" parents with a smartphone. You maître call after waiting the 30 mins most leagues tell you to wait.
Exactly. Ultimately, it is the referees decision once the game has started. I had four games on Saturday. The first was delayed about an hour for lightning and we came back and finished off the last 30 minutes. My second game was delayed starting for over an hour because of lightning. That one had to get played. This meant the last two started around an hour late as well. Another thing to consider is where are these teams coming from? That second game for me had a team from Detroit playing. We weren't going to cancel the game or terminate unless we had no choice. I had a similar set-up Sunday morning with the wind and a team from Columbus. Sunday night, when the rain and wind hit, I was supposed to have a game between a team from Oak Brook and a team from Downers Grove. They were about 15 minutes apart and they decided to reschedule. For delays, it always smart to keep where the teams are coming from in the back of your mind. It can make the justification to wait it out or abandon the game a little easier.
I know, that's my problem. It's great that NISL has relatively clear guidance in favor of waiting, but I've never centered a NISL game. For YSSL and less frequently IWSL, I don't think I've ever done a game for a team traveling more than one hour, which would argue in favor of terminating. I don't think it's a good idea to make teams for future games wait because any of the participants in an earlier game wants to wait two hours for lightning clear. The late game participants aren't going to know why the ref or other team is late and YSSL and IWSL have strict rules for declaring forfeits if the other team is late and does not allow a game to proceed without a certified ref. OTOH, those two leagues have no policy on a wait/terminate decision.
Here in Maine, we have a strict rule about lightning in high school soccer (fall sport): If we see a lightning bolt, whistle immediately, and the game cannot restart until 30 minutes after the last bolt. Last Friday, I was in South Carolina on vacation, and took in a pair of high school games (girls, then boys). The three-man crew pretty much ran the game like a USSF match: time kept on the field, etc. Solid mechanics and work overall. The girls' game got done just fine. Dark clouds rolled in during the boys' first half, same crew. Within the last 10 minutes, we saw lightning. Kept playing. Another bolt, more visible, kept playing. Three or four more bolts, no whistles, half ended. The CR decided to get the second half started quickly. (I distinctly heard an AR tell someone, "It isn't my decision.") Another bolt, no whistle. Rain comes pouring down, three tweets, shake hands, everyone high-tails it off the field. We would have been raked over the coals in these parts had we not stopped the game immediately after the first bolt. Do you enforce this rule (if you have it) strictly in your areas?
Oregon isn't a particularly lightning prone area, but these rules are strictly enforced for prep ( and in one case, a college game I was at) From the OSAA handbook. http://osaa.org/officials/1112AOH.htm Stricter proceedures have been proposed. When I lived in Maryland, a kid at a Lacrosse game was killed by lightning when kids took shelter under a tree. http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...qxdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e10NAAAAIBAJ&pg=2064,3748935
Just to be clear. The AR was wrong. If your CR is doing something you feel is putting safety at risk, you force a stoppage. I don't care if that means holding your flag up and walking towards center or walking off the pitch. Now, I recommend holding the flag up and call him over, but you do whatever you have to. Not only is the CR putting people at a safety risk, you, as part of the crew, are deviating from industry practice and putting yourself at a liability risk. No game is so important that it trumps either of those two.
I sometimes wonder what I should do when I am a spectator and this happens. Make a scene and show up the referee crew? If not, pull my son off the field and have him be utterly embarrassed, more so if I'm the only one who noticed the lightning?
I've embarrassed my son by pulling him before. When we got home, he wasn't happy. I told him I understood that it is embarrassing, but that it is the job of adults to protect children and the adults weren't doing their job. I'd rather embarrass him than bury him. He understood.
Doing a game, in Oregon, a boys' varsity dual, some years ago. No particular signs or symptoms of a storm, but a night game. With no warning, there's a lightning ground strike maybe a mile away, behind me. Just about soiled my diaper. I mean, it was LOUD! We got to shelter, home team got inside, visiting team's coach kept his boys on the field 'staying warm.' Fortunately, there was no further lightning and we were able to resume play in 30 minutes. Put the coach's behavior in the game report, which went to his AD. Never saw that coach again.
Usually by the time there is lightning I'm sick of being out in the rain anyway, so damn right I'm gonna enforce that rule strictly.
If you're the only one who noticed the lightning -- time for you to bring it to someone's attention.It doesn't have to be a scene. If you're a coach - tell the AR. If you're a parent in a spot where you can tell the coach, do that. If not - loudly saying something like "I think I saw lightning" should do the trick. Lightning isn't a primary thing officials are looking for while the ball is in play (although I have pregamed it for the trail AR on days where it might be an issue and the players behind the ball likely won't be) I know if I had seen no signs of a storm, and a parent said they'd seen lighting I'd doubt it, but if there was a storm moving in (and my sense was the parent was reasonable and knew what they were looking at), I'd take their word. Last summer when I knew we had a storm coming I told both coaches at halftime on a HS age rec game that if I had to stop the game, that would be it. The storm moved in so quickly, there was no lightning or thunder -- until well after I called the game. I thought we had another 10 minutes easy and then I could call the game and give everyone time to get to the cars -- I didn't realize this was a "derecho" (or know what one was until then). It was a parent running out from the bleachers because of an emergency alert on their phone about a tornado warning that let me know this was a storm moving far faster than a typical one in our area, and one that was much more powerful than a late afternoon thunderstorm. So I'll say again, although it was a different risk indicator in this situation - if you see lightning, and you know no one else did, bring it to someone's attention. Even if an official may not jump on it (we can't always believe everything a parent says) - that person should catch the next one. If you know what you saw, hopefully the officials will clear the field right away.
I would have been long gone had I been in this situation and the crew decided to keep playing. I also would have suggested the teams follow my lead. How any person can let children which they are somewhat responsible for be endangered like this is a travesty.
I never was a ref, but I used to be a lifeguard. People hated me for the fact that I went strictly by the 30 minute rule...even the owner of one of the places I worked at fought with me over it. The fact is there are stupid people out there, but you have to do what is best for everyone's safety.