Coin toss speech

[stegenref]

I started working the White Hat position at the local youth football league a few weekends ago and even though I've heard a dozen or more guys give their little speeches at the coin toss, when I got up there to do it I completely froze and didn't know what to say. Does anyone have a script or a list of things they cover? Something I could memorize or type up on a little cheat sheet?

[jTheUmp]

My go-to spiel:

• Have captains shake hands.
• Statement about sportsmanship and how they need to police their teammates.
• Ask them to help us retrieve the ball on incomplete passes.
• Tell them we'll give them their options on penalties.
• Ask if they have any questions.
• Ask visitor for coin toss selection, go through coin toss mechanics.

Depending on the level of youth football you're talking about, I might skip 4 and 5 (and go straight to the coach for penalty enforcement selections when necessary).

[Snake~eyes]

You will eventually learn one impotant fact: No one cares what you have to say during the cointoss.

Shake hands, one obligatory comment about sportsmanship, THEN execute the cointoss.

Don't bore the captains, your partners, or the idiot parent who feels they have to be 3 feet away to take live action photos of the coin toss.

[JugglingReferee]

I will always ask in the first 2 weeks of a new season if there are any questions about the new rules.

I then certainly cover any oddities in the field. (Which is very rare.) The only one this year was a fence only 3 feet from the back of the end zone. As the CC that game, my ruling was that if a pass came to that part of the EZ, we were blowing the play dead before there was a safety issue, we'd purposely have an IW and we'd repeat the down.

A quote to promote sportsmanship. There's always a chance to remind players of such importance, since both teams could be playing for the last playoff spot, for example.

Then the coin toss.

[Lintner5]

I completely agree with the comments above (i.e., keep it short, cover the basics, don't think anyone will retain anything from it). Most importantly, you must get the coaches to verify their teams are legally equipped within NFHS specifications. That & the coin toss itself are the absolute necessities for me.

[ajmc]

"One size never fits all" especially if you handle both High School and Youth levels. One thing I've found helpful is to tell the Captains that I expect them to control their players, and we (the officials) will give them the opportunity to do before we get involved. I advise them it's a lot less expensive for them to calm a player down, or send him to the sideline if he's losing his composure, than for one of us to do so.

Thereafter I've found the response usually good when one of us tells a Captain, "Talk to (or calm down) # so & so, he's getting ahead of himself". Often juvenile justice works a lot more directly than standard protocol allows.