Middle school / rec level match, not much happening. From out of nowhere, girl on white team announces loudly, "I have a huge wedgie!!!" Parents got a chuckle out of that one. Not sure I've heard that before on the pitch.
This will go well with the "things we see" rather than hear, but yesterday, the new PIAA bulletin came in. Do you know what is the first point of emphasis for officials? Socks. There has been an issue with players cutting the bottom of their socks off. Players have stated they do this to prevent blisters and don’t like the “feel” of the foot material of the original sock and replace it with some other sock and pull theteam stocking up over their shin pad. Rule 4-1-1 states, "Equipment shall not be modified from its original manufactured state and shall be worn in the manner the manufacturer in- tended it to be worn." Therefore, the cut socks are to be considered illegal equipment. If found during the pregame inspection process, the player(s) must change socks before starting the game. However, if a player is found to be wearing these illegal socks during the game, the referee is to issue a caution to the head coach for the first offense and have the player make the change.
File this one under "things you'll never see a sensible state administration ever give a s*** about". Seriously, are these Pennsylvania admins just sitting at the local coffee shop and figuring out which obscure rule they're going to watch like a hawk? GIven that Iowa doesn't give a rip if we wear colored socks as referees (as long as the crew wears the same color and style of sock), I'm guessing this is one of those rules we'll never really have to worry about.
In AZ we get picky about socks as well. We're supposed to enforce "straps must be same color as the sock" ... lots of kids pulling off their straps pregame. It's in the rules and you would think kids would learn after once or twice, but on the grand scale of things to worry about ...
The assistant should have seen red. ABSOLUTELY far beyond anything acceptable on the field. This needs to be reported to the school administration and state association.
That's my thought as well. It's a direct attack on your integrity and calls other really serious issues into question. Next time, toss the assistant and file with the state. The assistant really needs a very, very long suspension.
I remember in my first or second year, a couple of times at high-level youth matches, I enforced that strap rule. Then maybe the third time, I realized that the players were looking at me funny - not because I was wrong about the details but because it flagged me as someone who was worrying about the wrong things. So I stopped.
Decided not to do High School for the first time in about 20 years, and one thing I'm definitely not going to miss is some referees being sticklers about stupid shit like socks and straps.
And, thanks @Law5 and @RefIADad Calling my assignor to coordinate at the very least something from my chapter to the school; this being PIAA I also need to gauge whether an ex post facto report will get any suction. And after 16 years I've sadly added another preset to my radar.
I'm sitting down between two 7v7 fields 45 minutes before my next game. The other field is less than five minutes from halftime. PIOSP receives a pass and has a 1v1 with the keeper. Solo referee blows the whistle and calls offside. A father loses his mind. "You can't call offside when he is about to score!!" My brain locked up for a second. Did I hear that right? "He was just about to score. You can not call offside there!" I really wanted to ask when would be a good time to call offside, but it wasn't my circus...er...game.
D3 doubleheader and a substitute yells "shake that ass [name]!!!," and yes that's a direct quote.. I've talked with the girl in question a few times, so when she yelled it a second time I glanced over at the next stoppage and said: "Excuse me, I'm trying to concentrate here." Giggles from the subs, and then ended up going in the middle for the 2nd half to keep me out of trouble (and to let the center recover, poor dude was starved and extremely dizzy, so my first regular-season college middle only lasted 45 minutes ).
Also according to the NFHS rule book, the captain’s armband is supposed to be worn on the arm. After all it’s in the name. At least around here, I see numerous high school players having it on their upper sock. I want to say something every time I see, but I don’t want to be that guy. Instead I use it in a different way. If a captain’s n starts giving me a hard time about something, I tell them that they are improperly equipped and need to leave the field until they are properly equipped. They always look at me weird when I do that!
I'm at midfield taking one last swig of water before the match starts when I overhear the following from one of the coaches: "Ok, this is how we will line up....I left my lineup in the van, everyone run over to my van to see how we will line up today." They didn't.
Women's college game, 7 p.m. Saturday night kickoff. As I'm trying to corral three game balls for us to take out onto the field, the home coach holds out a hamburger to me and very solicitously, asks, "Did you get one?" "Ah, we're going to be running around out there so, thank you, but no." Their opponents scored 25 seconds into the game, and the route was on.
I got a "IT'S WHEN THE BALL IS PLAYED!" from the crowd in a boys varsity dual when the player in an offside position came into his own half to play the ball. I spent the rest of the game pondering the ramifications of that comment.
I was AR2 on the parents side for the first time in a long time and boy was it a delight. Cattiest parents I've heard in a while. Mostly in front of the away parents. Gems: 1. Away player commits an obvious foul (first foul of the game). "Don't you dare call that!" 2. Best home player on the field, who drew a PK in the first half, fights through several challenges. "She only stayed on her feet because she's not in the box." 3. Home team ends up winning 11-0 (the game was more competitive than the score suggests). "I know that you have to play the whole game, but they really should stop scoring" when the score was 9-0. This despite home swapping strikers and defenders... Lord, grant me the confidence of entitled parents.
Really? I wonder where they picked up that habit. IMO you should say something about it at the start if at all.
Where the captain wears their captain band is, IMHO, majoring in the minors. Yes, that is the NFHS rule. "It's an arm band, so it has to be worn on the arm!" I don't buy captain arm bands, but I've seen quite a few that are of a fixed size, rather than velcro''d. Particularly for high school girls, some don't have an arm big enough to keep a fixed size band in place. Their calf is the only place that works. YMMV.
True that is majoring in the minors. However there is a tool called 'needle and thread' to resolve the issue.
Coach warming up a U13 keeper on an adjacent field: "When the ball comes into the box, it's yours, you come get it. Remember, you can't be fouled."
Well it's technically true, in the same sense that no one else anywhere on the field can be fouled. But that doesn't mean a foul won't happen. And I'm sure the coach was thinking, "Nothing you do will be a foul."
This is even more true for U11s and U12s. I tried to find adjustable armbands for my teams when I was coaching, but some seasons I just couldn't.