fester
Third String But Playing on Special Teams
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2005
- Messages
- 530
- Reaction score
- 88
I'm a collegiate soccer official. Today was my first pre-season scrimmage/game of the year. It was two D-3 women teams playing. I thought the game went well, everyone stayed healthy, the coaches got some good tape, I worked the rust out of my legs, and no one made an amazingly horrendous plays that required send offs. For a preseason game, this was a win-win-win.
One of the things I was thinking about before the game was ball security. As routine, the home team brought seven balls to the referee area. We asked where the keeper wanted them if they were out of regulation. The captain said 11.5 to 12 if possible. We measured the balls with a single gauge ( a Wilson with a deflation button). Six of the seven balls were light. The regulation ball was 10.2/10.3 (min recommended was 10 PSI). We pumped the remaining six balls to rock hard and then started to let air out. Two tenths of a PSI was about a half beat. Finally we had six balls that were about 11.5
Once we were happy with the balls, we rolled them to the back wall of the referee area and ignored them for the next half hour as we conducted our pregame conference, stretched, got a drink. With six minutes to kick-off, we gave the balls to the work-study ball chasers, and then called captains for coin flip. As I was the Assistant Referee, I kept an eye on the ball chasers. The center referee kept the starting ball with him, and once we determined that Green had kick, we started.
This is how ball security works for a pre-season, meaningless college soccer scrimmage. It is not too tough to maintain a firm chain of custody and security on the balls if anyone gave a damn.
One of the things I was thinking about before the game was ball security. As routine, the home team brought seven balls to the referee area. We asked where the keeper wanted them if they were out of regulation. The captain said 11.5 to 12 if possible. We measured the balls with a single gauge ( a Wilson with a deflation button). Six of the seven balls were light. The regulation ball was 10.2/10.3 (min recommended was 10 PSI). We pumped the remaining six balls to rock hard and then started to let air out. Two tenths of a PSI was about a half beat. Finally we had six balls that were about 11.5
Once we were happy with the balls, we rolled them to the back wall of the referee area and ignored them for the next half hour as we conducted our pregame conference, stretched, got a drink. With six minutes to kick-off, we gave the balls to the work-study ball chasers, and then called captains for coin flip. As I was the Assistant Referee, I kept an eye on the ball chasers. The center referee kept the starting ball with him, and once we determined that Green had kick, we started.
This is how ball security works for a pre-season, meaningless college soccer scrimmage. It is not too tough to maintain a firm chain of custody and security on the balls if anyone gave a damn.