The growth of high school soccer in southern Maine during the late 1990s included what local officials in the sport believed was an uptick in unsportsmanlike play.
That prompted the Southwestern Maine Activities Association to enact a policy that since 2000 has stiffened penalties for players and coaches who accumulate three or more yellow or red cards during the regular season — with suspensions of one or more matches depending on the number of cards.
The number of cards issued annually since then has declined dramatically, according to Gary Stevens, athletic administrator at Thornton Academy of Saco and author of the Southwestern Maine Activities Association policy.
“I feel strongly that the policy is accomplishing the objectives we set out with,” he said.
A similar cumulative-card policy will be implemented statewide beginning this fall after gaining approval last week from the general membership of the Maine Principals’ Association.
“We have been dealing with concerns about unsporting behavior for a number of years at this point, and we felt that this would be the best way to approach it,” said Nick Raymond, assistant principal at Hampden Academy and chair of the Maine Principals’ Association soccer committee.
The Maine Principals’ Association policy is similar to standards used not only by the Southwestern Maine Activities Association but also the Western Maine Conference, according to Maine Principals’ Association Assistant Executive Director Mike Burnham.
“The soccer committee formed an ad hoc committee and brought in coaches and officials and looked at what some of the leagues around the state were doing,” he said. “They also looked at what some other states had done relative to cumulative cards and surveyed Maine high schools for their opinions on the subject.”
Any player or coach who totals three yellow or red cards during the regular season or playoffs now will be required to serve a one-game suspension, with a fourth card resulting in a three-match suspension, according to the Maine Principals’ Association policy.
Any player or coach who amasses five yellow or red cards during the regular season and playoffs will be suspended for the remainder of the season.
The suspended athlete or coach may not participate at any other level of the sport until the suspension has been served at the level (varsity or subvarsity) at which the card was issued.
Any player or coach suspended beyond the team’s final game of the season will be required to sit out the next countable contest in the next sports season in which they participate.
The policy replaces the rule in which players must sit out 10 minutes of play after drawing a yellow card, though schools or leagues may opt to maintain the 10-minute sit-out mandate if they wish.
“By [National Federation of State High School Associations] rule the athlete still needs to sit out, but it would be at the discretion of the school to determine for how long,” said Raymond, who officiates basketball and baseball.
Players and coaches who receive a red card or two yellow cards in a match already are ejected from that contest as well as the team’s next match under the Maine Principals’ Association’s red card ejection rule, and if applicable, those penalties would be added to the cumulative-card consequences.
“Let’s say a person gets their fourth card of the season and it’s a red card,” said Raymond. “They would have to sit out the rest of that game and the next game, and then the three games above that.”
Exceptions to the Maine Principals’ Association rule involve indirect yellow cards assessed to a coach for an illegal equipment violation, which will not count toward the cumulative total. Any card given to an athlete for such a violation, which occurs after the first card has been given to the coach, will count toward that player’s total.
Cards issued during the preseason will not count toward the cumulative total, though any athlete or coach who receives three yellow cards or one red card during preseason will be suspended for the remainder of the preseason as well as the first regular-season contest.
The Southwestern Maine Activities Association’s example
If the Southwestern Maine Activities Association’s experience with a cumulative-card policy is any indication, the state could see a significant reduction in cards issued to players and coaches.
“What we have found is that number of cards issued certainly has declined in our league since we started this in 2000,” said Stevens, who tracks the number of cards assessed to soccer players and coaches in the 16-school league each year.
“The other thing we’ve found out is that fewer and fewer people now have to serve consequences because of cards,” he said.
According to Stevens’ data, the number of cards issued since 2000 during regular-season Southwestern Maine Activities Association boys matches has ranged from 123 at the varsity and subvarsity levels in 2002 to a low of 36 in 2014.
That number has topped 100 just once since 2004 — it was at least 105 each year from 2000 through 2002 — and totaled 58 last fall.
The annual average for cards issued during boys matches since the policy was implemented 16 years ago is 80.69 — 63.13 for varsity players, 12.56 for subvarsity players and five for coaches.
For girls matches, the post-2000 regular-season high for a year was 23 in 2008 while the low was five in 2009. Twenty-one cards were issued to Southwestern Maine Activities Association girls players last season.
The annual averages for girls since the Southwestern Maine Activities Association’s cumulative-card policy was implemented are 10.94 for varsity players, 1.50 for subvarsity players and 2.75 for coaches.
“On the girls side we have very few cards to begin with,” Stevens said. “Our girls’ card total is extremely low, and it is very unusual to have a girl get more than one card in a year.”
Since 2007, only two Southwestern Maine Activities Association girls soccer players have drawn as many as three cards during any regular season while only two other girls have received two cards in a season.
Just one Southwestern Maine Activities Association boys player has been assessed the maximum five cards in any year from 2007 through 2015 and been subject to suspension for the remainder of the regular season.
One other boys player amassed four cards in a year during that span, while 15 players have drawn three cards and 48 have been assessed two cards during a regular season.
“I can recall since we’ve done this only one person who got to that fifth card,” said Stevens. “To me that’s a pretty good sign.”
Just two Southwestern Maine Activities Association boys soccer coaches and three girls coaches — all male — have received as many as two cards during a season over the last nine years.
“It certainly is different now,” said Stevens, “and the quality of our play is better now, too. Hand in hand with our policy, the games in the [Southwestern Maine Activities Association] are played much differently now because the skill level is so much better.”
A self-policing plan
One key to the new Maine Principals’ Association policy involves the central reporting system that keeps track of yellow and red cards issued around the state.
Game officials currently report all cards assessed during any high school match to the Maine Association of Soccer Officials website, and an email notification then is automatically generated and sent to the player’s or coach’s school.
“We know as soon as the official inputs a card into the system that a player has received it, and then it becomes the responsibility of the school to oversee it and make sure we’re not playing with ineligible players,” Raymond said.
“It is completely the responsibility of the school to keep track of how many cards a player or a coach has had,” he added.
Raymond said the officials’ organization has been very supportive during the development of the policy, and that implementation will be a collective effort.
“It’s not really to put all the ownership on the kids, it also puts responsibility on the coach and the school,” he said. “We at Hampden Academy, for example, are certainly going to be looking at that as well to make sure our kids are abiding by the rule.
“If we have a kid who gets close to it we’ll certainly have a conversation, even though we already have a conversation after one [card],” he said. “We’re going to have to keep a closer eye on it as a school, but this just brings everyone together so we’re all responsible for how the kids behave and how they act.”
