Pondering a Pee Wee Call
 

Second guessing myself with respect to a call in a Pee Wee Championship Game.

A runs a sweep into its own sideline. B player hits A in play and runs him about 3 yards out of bounds and tackles him. I bagged the spot and threw the flag for PF. (This is where it gets interesting) As I am running to the pile, an A coach seems to lose control. It is hard to describe, but he yelled and grabbed the B tackler. The moment he grabbed him a light must have gone off in the Pee Wee brain of his and he proceeded to act tlike he was helping the B player up. It was very clear to me that his intentions were not good when he grabbed the kid, but he didn't actually do anything.

WHat if anything do you have.

I'll tell you what I did later.

At the least I would have had an USF on the coach.

Reason # 323 for not doing non-school games.

REPLY: I'm pretty sure you'd be skating a slippery slope if you penalized him for what you believed he might have thought about doing, especially if he ultimately did nothing.

When you say the A coach yelled, if it was at the B player, I have a USC on the A coach. If he was just yelling in general, I have nothing since it sounds like he caught himself just in time.

I would thank him for helping the player back to his feet using facial expressions and maybe a wink so that he knows that I saw what he was about to do. No need to accuse him of trying to throw a kid or anything. He will understand as he was smart enough to not actually do anything.

Definitely a foul on the coach. Possible ejection. There's a POE in Canada about addressing the opposing team.

Pee Wees always want a foul called - Nothing in particular but any foul will do. As you describe it - its not a late hit or a hit out of bounds if they are 8,9 or 10. Anything older and you have to start thinking. You'll probably get a nice argument, but its the reality of the game. To me the coach is an ejection. As soon as he "grabbed" the kid - hes done and then suspended.
He can try and make any argument he wants - the intent was there.
Its youth football and theres no place for that.

Thanks for all the responses. To clarify, after the late hit, the coach yelled at the other player and moved quickly to grab him. It was at this point that he seemed to come to his senses and pretended that he was helping the kid up.

After some fishing, I located and threw a 2nd flag. USC on the coach. He weakly protested by saying "I was helping him up." I simply told him he can not put his hands on an opposing player. I think that he knew that he had flirted with ejection and he didn't argue.

My 2nd guessing resulted from:

A: On one hand, it was clear to me that he went after the B player and put his hands on him.

B: On the other I would not have flagged it at all if he had just helped the kid up. I don't like to interpret intent when I officiate.

Thus, there was a good argument for a more severe penalty and an argument for no penalty at all.

Again, thanks to all those that responded.