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I had this occur in a youth game last year. I told the coach during warm-ups that a young girl (maybe 8 years old) couldn't play because she had beads (many, many beads) in her hair. He told her mom who went nuts, and I gave the standard by-rule safety response. We played the first half and the girl sat. At halftime, game management came to me and said the girl can play. I explained that for safety and liability reasons, no, she cannot play. He said it was his decision and she could play. So I sat down and started taking my shoes off. He asked what I was doing. I said I'm protecting myself. If you insist she be allowed to play then you're doing it without me. I wrote the explanation in the scorebook, told both coaches what was going on, grabbed my jacket, and left. The youth director called me later that day and asked what the hell happened. I told her. Being an official herself, she just said thanks and from that point forward no players were allowed to wear beads or anything else in their hair.
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