Arsie7

We're still looking for two more regular season games for this fall. Willing to travel (within the area). Seymour High School is located in East TN. If anyone else is still looking for games, email me at drewpayne@sevier.org

As someone stated before, the "Hard Red" / "Soft Red" is used in high school only. I believe the reason for this is because people want soccer rules to be more "in-line" with other high school sports (good or bad). I LOVE the rule and I hope it remains this way forever. Die-hard soccer people will often see an issue like this and say, "well here we go again trying to make soccer more Americanized". I usually agree with that line of thought, as soccer is it's own sport and should not be compared to the more popular American sports. However, this particular rule is right for high school. And here's why: Many principals and other school administrators have a difficult time seeing a red card ejection as a somewhat normal part of the game. Although much more frequent, I kind of see it like the penalty box in hockey. Red cards are given from time to time in soccer. Part of the punishment is that the team has to play 10 vs 11. It's part of the game. Another part is that the player misses the next game. In this sense, an "ejection" in soccer is more frequent and less of a "big deal" than in other sports like football, baseball, basketball, etc. School administrators are usually old school and know more about those other three sports. So when they hear that a player was ejected, they can't help but to assume the player has done something very terrible. A hard tackle from behind in soccer warrants a red card. A hard tackle, bringing a player down by the face-mask in football is a 15 yard penalty. A player DOES need to do something terrible in football to warrant an ejection. Thus, the seriousness of ejections in other sports are more severe than in soccer. The "soft-red" vs "hard-red" tries to justify this a bit. This is just my take on this. Hopefully this makes some sense.

I guess there are several concerns within this new rule. One of mine, that I don't believe has been mentioned yet, is this: My boys team has a full white kit and a full navy kit. More often than not, we wear all white at home and all navy away. However, every now and then we like to mix it up - alot of this depends on what our opponent will be wearing (I don't even like for our socks or shorts to match the opponents'). My favorite combination is navy top, white shorts, white socks. We can only wear this two times a year, maybe three. For us to go with this combo it is normally a home game in which I have spoken with the other coach, and I have asked him if he wanted to wear white jerseys with dark shorts and socks - and he agreed to it. Now I know this is not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but it's just annoying to be policed like this. Will our local refs really make us change tops during pre-game if both coaches have agreed to what each is wearing? Surely not. Like someone mentioned earlier, other sports don't have rules like this.

I was just going over this new rule yesterday. This aggravates the heck out of me. I say we get together and protest this somehow. Absolutely ridiculous IMO.

Important venue note for Science Hill vs Seymour Region Semi: This game will be played at Sevier County Soccer Complex tomorrow (5/18) @ 7 - NOT at Seymour High School. I figured this was one way to get the word out.

They ran a dual. LOL, I would question my career choice if they had run just 1 center and 1 sideline AR. Either that or I would have concluded it was all a dream - a nightmare, really.

How about Seymour's photographer?! Good stuff! Look, this was a very unfortunate situation for everyone involved in this game (players, coaches, fans, referees). The referee who was scheduled to do the center for this game "called in sick". All I can do is trust that this was the case and assume he couldn't even get out of bed. That being said, I personally have never seen another high school sport, other than soccer, where the game can take place as normal with one less official. In all honesty, especially at the high school level, soccer struggles with just 3 referees (they have to cover a lot of ground). I do not have the solution to this problem. But I will say this: we have come to accept the 2 referee system as a normal aspect of the season - especially in the outlying areas. I wonder what would happen in the "District of Death" if a referee "called in sick"? As you can tell from the photo, the ball is obviously across the line. During the game, the referee who was working that half of the field, was standing closer to the half line than the goal line. He initially called it a goal - and a Morristown-West defender even picked up the ball and punted to half field in disgust of the goal. Then, all of the sudden, the referee made his way toward the goal line to look at (where he thought the ball was? I really don't know what he was doing.) He then had a brief discussion with ref #2 who was on the other half of the field, and restarted play with a drop-ball. As for the disputed Morristown-West goal: I have not been able to see the video yet, as youtube is blocked where I am. Watching live, I could not judge for myself as to whether or not the ball crossed the line. The referee told our captain after the game that he (the referee) was wrong. As I said, this is an unfortunate situation, especially for the players. Both sides were trying to play their game, and play it to the best of their abilities, and unfortunately they were having to deal with this circumstance at the same time. Coach Bradley and his coaches and players are a class act and I am not forgetting that they had to deal with the situation just as we did. It is just unfortunate that the result of the game was decided in this manner. And I know it's coming, so I'll go ahead and address it: I know these referees have a thankless job and there are not enough of them in the area. It is a job that I probably would not like and I see how tough it can be for them. But when a group of young men work their butts off for something and feel like they get it taken away from them, it's a hard pill to swallow. I'm not trying to ridicule anyone in this situation, I just think it should be addressed in some manner (especially given the evidence). Again, I don't have the solution to the problem, but in the future, I will avoid having only 2 refs at all costs.

We are looking for another scrimmage sometime next week - preferably Thursday (March, 11) or Friday (March 12), although we may be able to do Monday (March 8). We had a scrimmage scheduled this past Tuesday, but had to cancel it due to snow. We were unable to reschedule. If anyone is looking for another scrimmage, please contact me ASAP. We would really like to get another one in before season begins. Drew Payne Seymour High School Head Soccer Coach (865) 591-1055 drewpayne@sevier.org