[OverAndBack]

Okay, sophomore game tonight (first of my career). I'm the HL.

Coach on my side says that the other team's right tackle is wearing 25 and that's an illegal number.

Now, I'm guessing my thought process was whacked out on this, but I'm thinking "that's not my call to make, that's the umpire's call to make." So I tell the umpire. He says "as long as he doesn't go out for a pass, he's okay."

Well, I've only been at this two years, but I don't think that's right, but I've brought it to the attention of the umpire, he outranks me.

The coach won't let it go. I tell him it's the umpire's call and he starts yelling at me that "that's total BS. You mean if one of my players got speared, you wouldn't call it?" But before I could tell him that, no, in fact, that's a player safety issue and I would call that, the next play went off and away we went.

Anyway, apparently he kept *****ing about it and called time out so he could talk to the white hat about it (and made sure he got his time out back).

First off - sophomore game. That's ticky-tack, but whatever. Ref told me at halftime to just stop the proceedings and come to him if that happens again. I was absolutely not about to throw a flag and then have to pick it up because common sense says, "Oh, by the way, it's a freaking sophomore game."

Kid actually changed from #25 to #92 and again played on the line, which brought the whole thing to a head and they got penalized and the guy was happy. At halftime, the ref for the varsity game arrived to prepare for his game and said it's an equipment violation, which is what I thought.

Anyway, it didn't happen again the rest of the night, but the guy was a real martinet for a sophomore coach.

So, my questions are:

1. I was wrong not to tell the referee immediately, right?
2. I was wrong in thinking it was the umpire's call, right?
3. I was right in being polite to the coach and just telling him I heard him and that I had heard enough at that point, right?
4. What should I do in that situation again?

BTW, we had an inadvertent whistle that wiped out a long run by the same team down to about the 5 before that, but thank God, it wasn't me who blew the whistle.