No Captain Meeting?
 

Do all varsity games have to have a captains meeting? NFHS rules. Each state adopts what they want don't they?

It's in the Handbook. §§2.1.5 and 4.2.

What actually happens in these meetings varies widely, but afaik no state explicitly bans them.

Agreed, but if they were taken from the handbook and/or banned by a state, I'd be thrilled. These meetings are silly.

Agree as well. How many years has the coaches/captains meetings been a requirement?

Pre-game meetings are invaluable, imo.

Totally agree, I guess we screwed up this last weekend, I'll post the situation so maybe somebody else won't have this happen: BV, I'm watching players warm up before the game, Reff comes up to me and says we're not having a captains meeting tonight. Okay I'll bite, why not? The home coach told him that he didn't have any team captains tonight and none were going to be indicated in the book. Okay................ It was kind of fun starting like a JV game with no bs meeting. I thought every team had a captain but I didn't know one had to be indicated in the book. Is there any way by rule to force a coach to indicate a captain in the book? I've never heard of a coach being t'd for this. Can the reff randomly select a player from the roster?

The rule says "one of whom is the captain". But, there's no penalty for not having one.

I'd have the meeting anyway, even if one team doesn't have any team members present.

Agree. At the very least, I would want to meet with the coaches. You may find out some information you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. I had a couple of players on one team have medical clearances from the state for otherwise illegal headgear. Wouldn't have known that if we hadn't had the captain's meeting.

Why did you need a captains meeting for that? I check uniforms and equipment while watching warm-ups. Anything questionable can be addressed then. I've yet to be convinced a captains meeting is anything other than a relic from the past, when captains actually had real duties addressed in the rules.

Because we asked the coach about it.

For what?

My assignor and evaluators expect pre-game meetings with coaches. Captains usually attend. We are instructed to ask, if nothing else, "coaches, are all your players properly and legally equipped to play in today's contest?". We want both to say "yes" before proceeding.

If injury occurs because of something unseen is worn during the game, and the crew is called on it - our fallback is always that we did a pre-game and put the ball in the coaches court. It is their responsibility from that point on.

Now, if we as a crew, see something obvious (or even less than obvious) before or after that pre-game - of course, we will address it.

EDIT: snaqwells....saw your post after submitting my response to Hartsy.

1. We do ours separately, but I do it because it's expected. The players aren't listening and the coaches would rather have their attention on their kids. Coaches get four points addressed; sportsmanship, equipment, timeouts, and coaching boxes. Is it helpful? Probably occasionally, but I wouldn't consider it invaluable.

2. I can't imagine anyone inclined to hold you accountable would be swayed by this argument.

Ok.



Fortunately, I'll never have to imagine one way or the other since I, or my partner, always ask the question and we know our assignor has our backs.

Taking the leads from others, I have tended toward less and less this year in both coaches and captains meetings. Properly equipped.....anybody got a question.....any special issue with any player we need to be aware of......good luck.

On the other hand, the last two games I had where someone else was the ref, I thought we would hear the whole rulebook read aloud. Explanations of verticality, (my spellcheck thinks verticality is not a word) reminder of the number of timeouts, quite a long speech in both cases.