Fair Catch
 

What is a valid fair catch signal?

I normally tell my return men "two times over your head". Today in discussing it with some other officials they told me that there is no need for the return man to go twice, and that as long as the arm was extended above their head, one swipe was enough.

The rule book says "..the extending and lateral waving of one arm..." - to me, that infers that an extension and swipe is not valid. Any thoughts?

The number of times is really not relevant. If they give one good swipe above their head, I am killing the play anyway. I am not going to nitpick this rule.

Peace

It should be more than once, but at the HS level, unlike that for NCAA where it clearly says "more than once", a one time wave is widely interpreted to be valid.
I happen to disagree with that, but have no problem going with the flow on it. The NF rule does say "... lateral waving of one arm". Sure sounds like more than once to me. It they mean one wave is OK , than dang it all, say so in print.

there's a spec of fly dung in the pepper
 

I'm confused by your interpretation. When you say twice above your head, are you saying left-right is one waive, so it needs to be left-right-left-right? Or are left and right seperate and therefore count as two waives?

The rule book doesen't clarify.

What I'm saying is, if we're going to be so dang nit-picky that we would even consider calling an invalid fair catch because a waive didn't go left and right the proper number of times then, then we're going to be throwing a lot of flags because things much more cut and dry are ging on every play that we let go.

Invalid FC signal is a flag in Fed ? / ?

As Tom says, NCAA is clear , side tio side more than once, i.e. left to right to left. And based on the language that was quoted here, sure seems like Fed implies more than once. Main difference will be the protection (or lack thereof) the returner receives after completing the catch. Other than that, ball will still be dead when possessed and signaller cannot block if he does not touch the kick (NCAA)

you might consider, you only have a problem, when there is a problem. If the signal does what it is intended to do, alert the defense that the receiver is giving up their right to advance the kick in return for an unmolested opportunity to catch the kick, and both parties respond appropriately, there's no problem.

When there's improper contact, a judgment has to be made. Was the signal clear enough to convey the proper message to the defense, and to you, in time for the defense to react, or not.

To be honest, I don't know what I am saying. When I actually thought about what "twice" means, I realized that I didn't know. However, I don't think that a swipe constitutes a wave. For clarification, I did not flag the return man for the swipe - I spoke to him, but two of the more senior officials on the crew pretty much told me that my instructions of "two times" was incorrect and that as long as the arm came above the head, then that would be sufficient.

What if the arm comes above the head to block the sun? The Case Book talks about this on case 6.5.7 situation B in the comment. Just saying...
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