Had a situation in a game tonight where with the snap fixin to happen I had a player with the "bottom" 2 chin straps unsnapped. I flagged it for failure to properly wear equipment. My WH said afterwords to just warn them and if it was a mouth piece to flag that.

To me one snap undone would warrent more of a warning. But with 2 unsnaped, that makes it real easy for the helmet to come off during the play, and thus a safety issue. I had already been hollering all game to remind player to put in mouth pieces and to snap chin straps.

Was I over the top on it by flaging it or was I right?

I don't flag this - stop the game and get him to fix it.

Edit: I didn't originally read how you had been warning him all game. We have some flexibility here in Canada around doing what's right. I'd consider sending the player off for a sub and tell the coach he needs all his equipment checked and reminded to be worn properly.

[Edited by JugglingReferee on Sep 8th, 2004 at 07:27 AM]

If you already warned him all night then sounds like a good call to me.

I agree with the warning the first time but flag the next time. This past weekend, the home team quarterback would leave one of the bottom straps unbuckled. The first time, we let him buckle it with a warning but the second time, we flagged him. If we would just keep warning him, too much time would continue to run off the clock as his team was ahead at the time and they were working into conservation mode. Once we flagged him, it was buckled each and every time.