Here's hoping my Achilles rehab will let me take up the flag again in the spring. (Either way, I'm planning to spend a lot of Saturdays reffing U-Little games.)
This rubs me the wrong way. Why did someone feel the need to put this on the coaches? These are HS players and more than capable of listening when told what is proper and not proper to wear. The card should be to the player.
NFHS softened it--at one point cranky teens could get their coach tossed by having two of them do it! I believe this is a cross-over from other sports. I believe HS consistently makes the coach in various sports responsible for ensuring the team is properly equipped--and has to tell the referees that before the game. The good news is the refs don't have to inspect. The caution is for the coach failing to do what he told the refs that he did.
Not lately, but it's not really the point either. Sports are supposed to teach responsibility but we go and make rules to punish the adult instead of them. Just seems a bit wrong for me.
I'm not sure if it happens, but the theory is that the punishment dished out by the cautioned coach more than makes up for not receiving the caution themselves. It becomes a teaching opportunity! That's my theory anyway.
I was told it was for legal reasons. Because HS sports / NFHS is very “sue-happy”. By asking the coach if your players are properly and legally equipped to play you are entering the coach into an oral contract. Therefore if they aren’t you have a punitive punishment. But I think my assignor that told me that was BS’ing me.
The NFHS rule change was to relieve the officials from having to do the pregame equipment inspection. No more "Show me your cleats" "Knock on your shin guards" etc. The job was transferred to the coaches, who promptly ignored it. So to get the coaches to do their duty, the first YC is now given to coach.
I also refereed football. We asked the coaches the same question, "are your players legally and properly equipped." We never had issues, so never had to give football coaches yellow card - or whatever the appropriate penalty was.
I think it's a five yard penalty and automatic first down, but that's only the pro game in the US*; high school rules may have had a "write on the chalkboard 100 times…" element. In Canada, I'm pretty sure moose are involved. *Official Rules of the National Gridiron League, Book 3 (G thru K), Section 42, Part IV, Subsection C, Item 1.b
We once had some rowdy high school soccer coaches insisting that it was so unfair to give cautions for illegally equipped players, yahda, yahda, yahda. Eventually, we had a meeting with the coaches and a group of Athletic Directors to discuss the topic. The AD's were all former football coaches. They were totally dismissive of the coaches' complaints. They said that if a football player, for example, is missing a required pad, he's done for the day. There's no putting in the pad and getting back into the game. That's the last we heard about the equipment issue. For the most part, in our state, coaches are either on top of this or they get on top of it when they get a card for not being on top of it. This is one area in which I can truly say that it's the adults being in charge of the kids, not the referees versus the teams. I know coaches who have made it clear that a player who gets him a caution for equipment will be running laps tomorrow at practice.
Since this rule came about in high school soccer, I have not had much of an issue with it. I usually only have to caution a coach for equipment once or twice a season. I really don't think that this is that big a deal. I try to be proactive by reminding the coach when I introduce myself before the game or reminding the captains during the pregame conference. I tell the captains "Don't that player that gets your coach in trouble."
JV girls game, dual, I'm R1 so I'm on the bench side. During the first half, I notice a visiting team player sitting on the very end of the bench, wearing jewelry. There's probably a reason she's at the very end of the bench, right? About 10 minutes into the second half, she's up at the halfway line to sub in. When the stoppage occurs, I go over to her. Flesh colored tape on both ear lobes. "You need to take off the ear rings before you can sub in." She wants to argue. Wrong decision. "They're cuts." "I can see the outline of the ear rings under the tape. And you've got three bracelets on. AND you've got a necklace. Coach, you want to burn a caution here or do you want to bring in someone else?" The coach went with door number 2. About five minutes later, bling girl is back at the halfway line, no necklace, no bracelets and two naked ear lobes with holes that weren't red, much less bleeding. It doesn't have to be adversarial with the coaches. I'm just offering advice.
Last HS season, first weekend girls tourney. I'm R2 in a dual and a girl comes out in earrings. I walk her over to the coach and show him the earrings and tell him she's has agreed to run every line on a football field the next day and let the card go. In the second half 5 minutes in I see the same girl, sans earrings and sans shinguards. I walk her to the same coach, point to her socks and tell him the first one was a freebie, this one isn't, and card him up. He was not a happy camper.
I did that once - the instructor gave me a candy bar as a reward. Most times, there was a trick question or two that screwed me up. Like the one I got wrong 2 years in a row shortly after throw-ins to the keeper were made illegal. I missed that the throw was taken by the opponents. Ugg.
Actually got one wrong, until the guy next to me asked the instructor, who “led” him to the answer, and I followed suit. Darn tricky wording!
Yes, it is the point. The HS coach, in all sports, is responsible for the safety of his/her players. Yes, the team maybe has rules about equipment internally, but since HS athletes have the attention spans of fleas, the safety falls with the coach. We ask BEFORE the match if their teams are properly and legally equipped. And the coaches are therefore warned. They need to make sure their players are as they said. And, I take great happiness from a coach getting an equipment yellow, because it loads my gun. If that coach makes noise after that yellow, I can easily shut him up by a quick drive by reminder.
This goes beyond soccer and speaks to the lack of preparing young people for adulthood. At that age, nobody except for them should be punished for their actions. *Maybe* if there are multiple players the ref has to give a card to for equipment issues then one to the coach is in order as well, but at no point in my mind should the player not be directly punished. Both the coach and the teammates laid into players who couldn't remember basic equipment requirements and they soon learned. As I said, it's a statement which goes beyond soccer and I'll stop there. Now, from a referee standpoint I am disappointed that one would welcome giving anyone a card so that they can be threatened later on. Is that really what you meant to say?