Coin Toss Options

[Ref inSoCA]

Originally Posted by glyphrunner

Tonight, we had a very interesting, while absurd, situation happen on the coin toss (and subsequent second half options).

Ref: "Home, you've won the toss. You have the option of kick, receive, defend a goal, or defer to the second half."

Home Captain: "We'll defer and defend that goal" (indicating the west goal).

Ref: "You only get one choice right now; kick, receive, defend a goal, or defer to the second half."

Home Captain: "Ok, we'll defend that goal" (once again indicating the west goal).

Ref: "Visiting captain, you have the option to kick or receive."

Visitor Captain: "We'll receive."

Ref: "Home captain, you'll be kicking from the west end and it will be white choice in the second half."

Both teams shake hands and go off to their sidelines. No qualms or questions at all. Then, when we're giving the options for the second half, Home Captain insists that they get to receive the ball even though Visitor Captain has already stated their desire to receive the ball. For some reason, the Home coach also insists that it should be their ball to begin the second half.

I know we did this correctly, but I just had to share the fact that there are still some people out there that don't understand that you don't always get to receive the second half if the other team received in the first half.

A way to avoid this, and the way it's done here is:

Toss the coin. To the winner say: *** you've won the toss. Do you want to make your choice now or defer the second half?

If he says "defer" then the loser will usually say " we want the ball" before you can ask him.

Don't make officiating harder than it already is.

[Forksref]

At the varsity level I give the four choices and let them decide. I constantly tell coaches to teach their kids that unless there are very poor weather conditions, that they should either receive or defer. I don't think we need to coddle the kids at that level. At lower levels I explain the consequences of their choice. You can easily spot the well-coached teams because their captains are prepared for the coin toss options.

[TXMike]

They are not taking the SAT test out there..there is nothing wrong with giving them whatever help is needed to prevent an error. It take no extra effort and should cause you no extra difficulty to make it clear to the KID (and that is what they are, KIDS) what is choice will yield. Maybe it has been a long time since you were in their shoes but at that point in the game, many kids are so cranked up they have a hard time thinking straight. How does it hurt anything to help them out???

[RoyGardner]

IMO the R should have taken the original choice and clarified it. It would have eliminated any confusion. The R repeating the list of four options after it's clear there is some confusion borders on arrogant. I really don't care that according to the rules he is "technically correct".

After two of these instances in key game 3 years ago, our R's now ask the team winning the coin flip "Do you want to exercise your option now, or defer to the 2nd half?" There's only one "choice" here and that's now/defer. If they say defer, then option is offered to the other team and that is started off by R clearly saying they have deferred their option to the 2nd half, you have the option for the first half ......

Once the winning team indicates defer, we ignore the rest and of the response and pass the option to the other team. The coach clearly told the player something like "If we win toss, we want to defer, and defend the North goal." If we take that response to mean the team is using it's option to defend a goal, shame on us. It's our job to get it right, and I have no interest in showing the coach how "technically well we know the rules".

[RoyGardner]

Additionally, the R's response "You only get one choice right now; kick, receive, defend a goal, or defer to the second half." is very misleading.

When a team defers it will in most cases get a 2nd choice. When team 2 uses the option to receive, team 1 then has a 2nd option to decide end of field to defend. Let's not be "smart", let's be fair.

[Middleman]

When I'm Referee, I ask the coaches what they want if they win the toss and see to it the captain makes the right choice. If I'm on the wing bringing the captain in, I ask him if he knows what his coach wants and make him tell me before we even see the Referee.

[golfdesigner]

I haven't been WH for very long, but my approach is to ask the coach during our initial meeting with him prior to coin toss, coach, if you win the toss what is your captain going to tell me? and which end do you want to defend? Then if the captains don't say what coach told me prior, then we say are you sure? This last Friday night prelim game, when Red won toss elected to defer, White took ball, asked Red, which end will you defend, captains, looked at each other and said, " I don't know Jeff what do you think, which way do you want to go" I stepped in and suggested that I thought their coach wanted to defend the scoreboard, they said okay, "we'll defend the scoreboard."

It seems to work for us anyway.