Feb 19, 2010 9:30:07 AM

The NCAA Men's and Women's Soccer Rules Committee recently became the second playing-rules panel to address stoppage of play for players who exhibit signs of a concussion.

As the Football Rules Committee had done just days earlier, the soccer committee at its annual meeting last week added "signs of a concussion" to instances in which the referee stops the clock and beckons medical personnel onto the field.

The action comes after the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel's endorsement of recommendations from the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports to manage concussion issues more effectively. At its meeting in January, PROP instructed playing-rules committees to review their policies in the areas of stopping play for injuries and to consider instituting rules that may further prevent head injuries.

The soccer rules committee added concussions to rules regarding players bleeding or blood on the uniform, which also require immediate medical attention.

Cliff McCrath, former longtime coach at Seattle Pacific and the only secretary-rules editor the soccer rules committee has had, said the need to protect student-athlete health and safety won out over potentially disrupting the traditional "flow of the game."

"The committee read the signs society has prioritized about the importance of protecting the player as opposed to the sanctity of playing rules," McCrath said.

The Playing Rules Oversight Panel will review the recommendation.

Other recommendations from the soccer rules committee include a more restrictive card-accumulation formula for players and coaches who have compiled five or more cautions in a season. Once a player or coach accumulates five cards in a season, he or she must sit out the next game. Subsequent one-game suspensions are enacted once that player or coach accumulates three more cards.

The rules committee, though, is recommending a 5-3-2 progression in part because of membership feedback indicating interest for a more restrictive formula.

In other action, the committee:

• Agreed that the head coach no longer needs to notify a referee of his or her desire to protest before the referee signs the scoresheet. The coach has up to 72 hours after the end of the game to file a protest.
• Added language regarding "hesitation moves" or feigning and stop-start moves by players taking penalty kicks. Inasmuch as the goalkeeper is permitted to dance back-and-forth on the goal line and feign moves before the kick, the committee allowed the same for the kicker; however, the hesitation move does not allow the kicker to stop completely.
• Agreed to streamline the rules book by removing a number of approved rulings and combining Rules 12 and 13 under the heading of "Fouls and Misconduct."