What happened with the shaking of the hands. Did the red team refuse? Given the circumstances, I feel the Referee handled it well.

Yes, but they also do not know what that means sometimes. This is why many want to make sure they want to kick both halves.

Peace

Me: You've won the toss. (Pause; if nothing, then, what do you want to do)?

Them: Kick

Me: You mean you want to defer.

Them: No, kick.

Me: If you choose to kick, you'll be kicking both halves, your coach is going to mad at both of us, and you'll be running puke drills all week next week; you want to defer, right?

If they still say kick, I'm going to take that as a defer. There's no harm in doing that -- they still get to kick and have a choice for the second half.

Don't EVER accept kick as a viable option since it never is. Defer accomplishes the same thing, and if there is a weather issue (with them thinking defense on the field first), they can always choose end of the field.

As the Referee the few times the winner has chosen kick, My next sentence is: "so you want to kick both halves?" the next answer has always been no we will defer, or some reasonable facsimile.

Additionally, covered in the pre-game with the coach kicking wasn't the selection of the coach. in each case it was defer...

Interesting enough, I have been on crews where the white hat knew the coach wanted defer and let the kids kick twice anyway.

I disagree with that totally. Kicking the ball is a choice. If it was not a choice it should be removed from the rule. And believe it or not some coaches want to do this for some strange reason. I just think we should clarify so that this decision is not made in error. Usually at the varsity level this is not much of a problem, but lower levels kids have no idea (as well as coaches) what they are doing.

Peace

Ever have a kid look at you and say "We want to go that way"?

::Facepalm::

They know it means you'll honor their choice to kick. That's all you asked, that's all they're owed.

What do you do, draw them aside in a situation and say, "If you accept that penalty, it'll be your 2nd and 1 here, but if you decline it, it'll be your 1st and 10 a yard ahead. Some people don't realize it, but 2nd and 1 is what we call a `waste down', a down you'd probably do a lot better on than the 1 extra yard you'd gain by declining the penalty. I don't know if your coaches think that way, but if they do they'll think you're a moron for declining the penalty."?

I don't have any idea what sort of parallel you're trying to draw here... but you've obviously never made the mistake of allowing a kid to actually choose kick. You KNOW that's not what is wanted (and don't forget, we're not talking varsity here - at varsity, you've already asked the coaches in advance). Letting the kid make this mistake is bad form, and there is NOTHING good that can come from it. If you'd ever been there, you'd know that.

Not necessarily. I cannot remember ever asking a coach before hand what the choice was and even if I did, the captain is supposed to know what to say. Then again coaches can be at the coin flip in our state, so this is often not an issue. And it is the coach’s responsibility to coach up their captains as to what to do. The other team can hear them and if you just ignore their words we are doing the other team harm IMO.

Peace

Different pre-game procedures, I suppose. We go thorough the toss options with the coaches at every level.

I've never let a kid choose to kick, but I've twice had coaches elect to kick. Once on purpose and once mistakenly. I even tried to bail both of them out.

After the coach mistakenly stated he wanted to kick, I asked him, "Are you sure? That likely means you'll be kicking both halves." He insisted he wanted to kick, so I let him. Even that nearly got out of hand. We take the field in the second half and he want to know where to line up his kick return team. I tell him that the other team chose to receive the ball to start the second half and asked him which end he wants to kick from? He started to launch into a tirade about how he kicked off the first half and should be getting the ball...

I give him a stop sign after about 3 seconds and say, "Coach, before you really get started, do you remember these exact words coming out of my mouth when you told me you wanted to kick... 'Are you sure? That likely means you'll be kicking both halves'". I must have triggered something, because he simply turned around an walked away calling for his kickoff team. I'm glad I was able to cut him off and get him to realize HIS mistake before he could really get going. I could tell it was going to be a doosey that wasn't going to end well for anyone.

I've had one choose to kick, effectively. However, he defered the initial coin flip just in case. The weather was ridiculous and he wanted the other team to start deep (and he had a REALLY good kicker). When the weather didn't let up he chose to kick in the 2nd half.

Other than that I did make the mistake of allowing a team to choose to kick to start the game - I was rather new and it was a lower level game... I did try to talk the kid out of it, but didn't confer with coach when the kid insisted. My S-Storm was similar to what you describe, except I did not have the "remember what I said" to bail me out that you did.

I have a confession to make.

I don't even ask if they want to kick. I just ask if they would like to defer, receive, or defend a goal.

I figure that if for some bizarro reason they really do want to kick, they will know enough to ask me if that is one of their choices.

i ask the coaches during pregame conference. One time Coach A said he wanted to defer, and Coach B said he wanted to receive. When we went to middle of the field with the captains I realized I had forgot my coin in the locker room. So I gave them what they wanted. Team A you will defer, team B you will receive, Team A what goal will you defend? Everyone got what they wanted.

We could probably eliminate a fair number of coin tosses in this manner.