Opinions
 

A lovely saturday this weekend no HS games on my schedule so I was working the local youth league, plays modified federation rules. (10 year old game)
Heres my situation an ugly ...lots of turnovers game, but remians fairly close.
In the first quarter I have a player scream "thats f***ing horsesh*t" now its definately UC, and I felt was way over the line and ejected player. Later the same game different player yells at opposing player "f***ing b*tch" another UC and ejected also.

May have been a little quick with the ejections but thought they were pretty egregious.

The second part of this situation is what really has been bothering me. Another member of our association coaches a team, different age bracket than the games I was calling, was at the fields that morning eating at the organizers tent after his game.
Here it comes the wounded coach pleads his case to this official and he talks to him about two UC for ejection. My philosophy has always been that 2 you have to leave but you can get there in one if it’s bad enough. League also has an anti profanity policy.
When asked to comment on rulings, I have always phrased myself as “if the play happened as you described….”, but have never commented on another officials field ruling at the game field, especially to a coach.
Do you feel this is poor conduct by this official?

I'm not sure what the other official's conduct was. I don't think you told us.

I agree though. USC requires ejection after two. However, you may eject on the first one if it is bad enough. Whether there are certain words are bad enough to eject for is not the debate here I don't think. Your first scenario I believe has a player yelling at his own team while the second one has a player yelling at an opponent. The second scenario is a worse situation in my book though.

As for commenting on plays you don't see I believe that your approach is the proper one to take. Many times people asking about certain plays seem to like to leave out little bits of information which we know are important but they see as immaterial.

At 10 years old you have to flag that. At the HS level you can turn an ear as long as its not directed at another player, not horrible, and the fans can not hear it. Lets be honest here, this is football not the chess club....Sometimes young men curse. But at 10 years old, you have to bang them for that. Worse then that, have the coach tell their parent. I would hope that is much worse then a 15 yard penalty.

I was wondering that myself

BigJWalt,

I understand it is not the chess club but I am not going to turn a deaf ear to that type of language at the HS level either. I may not flag it but the young man will get a talk to about not doing it again, especially if he drops a couple of f-bombs!

I would have a few words in private with your fellow official!

I totally agree, you have to acknowledge it and put an end to it. I am just saying I personally would treat it differently then a 10 year old game.

If anyone questions your actions just tell them the first "f-ing" was 1 and then when he added "horse(bleep)" that's 2 and the same goes for the second incident. If you dont' stop these young kids at this age they'll just get worse as they grow. I'm not sure about your area, but the youth leagues in my area, telling the coach would do no good. Like Barnie Fife, "Nip it in the bud."

I do youth here and the league does not tolerate it at all. UC when i hear this. May not be an ejection but most of our coaches will sit them when it happens. But I would support you if you were on my field for ejection.

A fellow official should do like you said and qualify his answer with "it sounds like" or "if it happened like you said" or something like that. However, like you, I wouldn't have thought twice about tossing a couple of 10 years olds for that. Good job.

We have a fairly low tolerance for profanity. If directed at the other team, an official, or loud enough for the crowd to hear, 15 yards. The only time I've seen someone ejected on their first USC for profanity was when he told our U that it was "F***ing bull*@#" and spiked the ball when we called a runner down and not a fumble (he recovered the "fumble").

Our biggest problem, though, is always during the football camps. The local university has our association officiate their scrimmages at the end of the camp. At the end of a week working with college coaches and graduate assistants, they are all swearing like sailors. It takes a few rags at the beginning of the scrimmage to calm them down, but they get back on track. (The college coaches, however, love to hound us for that.)

I also work lacrosse (which has a zero-tolerance policy for foul language, at least around here - it's very nice). I like my assignor's policy in that regard: "F***" is a one-minute USC penalty. "F*** you" is three minutes and an ejection.

In football, we don't have discretion as to yardage, but any player who simply said "F*** you" to an official or opponent warrants an immediate ejection in my game.

Why, Ron ... what did his fellow official do? We still don't know.

We tossed one at the scrimmage on Saturday. I believe his quote was, "Come on, Ref, what's your F'ing problem. God F'ing Dammit" Bye bye ... 15 enforced on the try, which they subsequently missed.

That's F-horse sh*t has sound like it is directed at an official. Ejection warrented.

F-n B**ch to another player is a warrented ejection also. You don't say crap like that to another teams player.