Best story of your week - 2012

I got this from a grandparent AFTER a Columbus Day tournament last fall. Was escorting the 15 year old female ref over to the shade, she had just finished a good game (she did good) when a grandparent comes over and tries to explain why we don't understand offside, how he's been watching soccer his whole life and just wants to help us (in his thick accent). He wouldn't go away nicely, so I just turned to the young female ref and said "come on, we need to get your paperwork done, I'll show you how to do it", grabber her arm, spun her and walked. She said "thanks, I didn't know how to get out of that"

Not trying to pick just one phrase from a great post, and I'm glad there were other games to redeem the day - but it's a real shame this statement doesn't surprise me, and I had a few of those this weekend myself.

Could be it's own thread I suppose - has it gotten worse or are we finally having our collective Howard Beale moment about behavior outside the FOP?

Around here, if you don't report a card, you will be seeing the Professionalism Committee and most likely will be suspended as a USSF referee for a period of time. Report the card. Let the administrators worry about what happens after the game.

Maybe it's the impending end of the season - we're less likely to give them slack and they're less likely to keep their cool. I have five days with games (11 games - 3 CR, 2 4O, 6 AR) until I'm done for the summer. I'm anxious to get back to a gym routine that's not interrupted by game days!!

State Cup round-robin game. G15. 'keeper goes for the ball and then totally wipes out the attacker with a leg sweep. I point to the spot and the coach goes ballistic. At the half and again at the end of the game he asks me what she should do.

I ignored him at the half, but post game I couldn't help but tell him that my job is to referee and not to coach his player.

Last night I received an email indicating I was invited to participate in the State Cup finals coming up in a few weeks - first time for me, was added to the list by my assessor after my upgrade assessment match last week.

First one as a referee and I'm pretty excited to take part in those games, even if I only get 4th assignments.

She should tell her defenders to pick it up and not leave her out to dry...

I went to my first American football game as a parent of a player last night, spring scrimmage. (Yes, he's the kicker. )

1) Football parents complain about referees just like soccer!
2) Apparently NFHS does not sell the lightning policy to it's football officials the same way. The first half was played with visible lightning nearby and loud thunder. The second half was ultimately interrupted when the fans ran from the stands in fear (I am NOT exaggerating). To top it all off, we didn't wait 30 min to restart! They simply ended the game. I had to wait to drive my son. By then, the skies had cleared.

I don't know where you are, but around here (I officiate NFHS football north of Seattle) it's pushed pretty hard. We go over it multiple times every year, and (though some of the older "white-hats" hate us when we do) we report any visible strikes and clear the field.

College showcase yesterday. Brit coach coaching Blue team. I am AR 1 and there is a bang bang play in the area and I see a handling by attacker. For some reason, the CR misreads my wiggle and direction and points to the spot. I have to talk the blue attacking coach down. He finally calms down but not before getting off one of the greatest lines I have ever heard. Mr. Referee, your assistant has had a shocker!

Yeah but all the players and coaches would call me "Sir" and not in a sarcastic jerky way either. The respect in American Football is HUGE compared to Soccer...yet not at the level of Rugby.

I've spent the past several hours creating this rather intricate MLS table on an Excel workbook. The tables for each conference are on the first two worksheets and each team has its own worksheet. When match results are entered into teams' worksheets, the conference tables automatically sort with tiebreakers and all (head-to-head sorting is next to impossible in Excel, so the tiebreaker just skips that one and goes straight to GD).

All that is nothing fancy, but here's the cool part. The cells at the top left of the table worksheets marked "Game #" and "Date" allow you to enter X number of games or any given date and the table will automatically change and sort to how the table looked after each team played X number of games or how the the table looked on any given date. Call me crazy, but I think that's pretty neat.

Let me know if I made any mistakes in entering the teams' schedules or anything. Enjoy!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/278788/ultra_mls_table_2012.xlsx

I did State Cup here in Utah a number of years ago and was refereeing a girls under 12 game (quarterfinal). It as an exciting game, but the kicker is the coach of the losing team came up to me and actually complimented me for doing such a good job. As I recall he said something to the effect that "this was the best refereed game I have had all year." I think my jaw hit the grass when he said that. I think I was shocked that a coach would actually compliment another referee.

Whenever I get compliments like this from people, I have to remind myself that if I'm going to take their compliments seriously, I need to take their critiques seriously. I'd rather do neither. I keep in mind this quote I got from a basketball officiating forum I read when it's basketball season and I'm doing games:

That is the attitude we need to have with respect to fans' and coaches' comments.

I don't know what you mean by "seriously', but I think you're missing out if you take no pleasure with the fact that someone was pleased with your work. I hope that's not the case. Positively connecting with people is a big part of life.

If you put any weight behind a fan complementing your refereeing, then you should put the same amount of weight behind their criticism of your refereeing. Generally, a fan doesn't know enough about how refereeing goes for such comments to be anything more than a comment on how well the teams played and should be taken as such.

I don't know what you mean by "weight", but if somebody had a good time I am happy for them.

So am I. I do not, however, take them saying I had a good game refereeing to mean that I had a good game refereeing. I give no weight to their opinion.

Is the criticism delivered in the same fashion as the praise? Or is it a backhanded yell of that was the worst game I've ever seen! If a fan/coach/etc says "hey, great game, very professional, you had a tough time out there, thanks for coming, etc." I usually just say thanks and good luck with the rest of your season/tournament. If they are respectful in their criticism, I usually just say the same thing.

I will say this though, that many of these parents have seen hundreds of games and they know what a nice flowing game should look like. I usually don't let anything impact my "feelings" unless I hear something from both teams. Lastly, it does feel pretty good when both teams tell you that the entire crew did well after a hard-fought intense match.

@topic - got to do a D1 semifinal men's game in a local tournament. Game ended 1-1 and it went straight to KFTM (teams had the option and didn't want the golden-goal OT option). Captain for the eventual losing team tells me at mid-field prior to the flip for KFTM, that he was hoping the other team would have put one in at the end so this would be over and they could get a jump on traffic headed back home 3 1/2 hours away. I chuckled. Fast-paced, intense game and got to work on developing my next level of officiating. Had a great time this weekend.

Wow, have to disagree with this from a coaching perspective. There are actually some coaches who know a well reffed game when they see one.

If the ref always assumes the coach doesn't know what they are talking about, then the ref has an attitude problem, which will interfere with getting better him/herself.

You need to consider the source, if the coach is a known hothead, ignore them. But if the coach is respected, usually shows the refs respect, but then has a one time criticism, you might want to listen and discuss the situation with your assignor or another experienced ref, or here.

I'm assessing at the Manchester United Premier Cup, which Nike runs for the elite U-14/U-15 teams from around the country. Short injury stoppage, with a throw-in for the restart. Yellow team takes the throw-in, wanting to give it back to black. Black player, about five yards away, let's the ball hit her foot, and the ball goes straight back over the line for another throw-in by yellow. So much for 'doing the right thing!' So, should yellow try to give it to black again?

I think I would say, "Do we want to try that again?" and if they didn't I would move on.

I certainly don't assume the coach doesn't know what he's talking about, but listening to his comments to me and his players throughout the game, I can certainly get an idea as to whether or not he knows his stuff. I'm not going to take seriously any of the comments made by the coach who told me that instead of telling him to be quiet, I should've come over and apologized for not calling the foul he wanted called. I will take seriously comments made by the DOC of the local club who seems to have a team in almost every State Cup final. Comments from any coach in between those two on that spectrum will be treated appropriately according to how smart the coach is. Comments from run-of-the-mill fans are immediately discarded mentally.

My personal evaluation of how I perform on the field is the most important thing to me.

State Cup Round Robins over Memorial Day weekend. Several interesting stories, but one stands out for me. Last game on Monday. U17B. One team (white) is completely comprised of hispanic players. The other team (blue) is 90% anglo, and, for various reasons, shows up with only nine players. Neither team has a chance of going through. The center is a State Referee and I'm AR2. All of us expected a pretty lopsided game.

Blue had an exceptional keeper, but you wouldn't have guessed just to look at him. A relatively small, dare I say unkempt lad who's moves reminded me of some of the better international keepers. He kept them in the game several times. I think he will go far.

In short, the final was 1-1 with seven cautions, four for white and three for blue, with zero ejections. The CR said he hadn't worked that hard to manage a match and keep everyone on the pitch in a long time. Pretty wild for a match that wouldn't have taken either team to the next round.

Working a competitive U12 boys match at a big local tournament, I noticed something interesting about the coach input. The Blue coach was well-behaved and respectful; he thanked the crew after he won and said we did a good job -- polite but not useful. The Red coach was loud and critical throughout, adding afterward that it was my fault his players sustained so many injuries. Half the stuff he said was biased and inflammatory, posturing for the parents and trying to "work" the referees.

The interesting part was the other half... That Red coach clearly lived and breathed soccer, and he had some useful feedback despite the inappropriate tone. "Both teams doing a lot of pushing!" "Ref, I know you're seeing those fouls because you put the whistle to your mouth; now blow it!" "Can't believe you let THAT one go!" "Now the boys don't know WHAT to expect -- that was the right call, but you weren't whistling those in the first half!"

The assessor/mentor I had for an AR provided useful advice after the game, including not to let the loudmouths on the sidelines get in my head. He also said I needed to work on my consistency with the foul calls. The real-time feedback from that Red coach helped pinpoint in my memory specific plays where consistency was an issue. Had there been no mentor, the coach's feedback might have been all I got, and it would either challenge me to develop my skills or press me to abandon refereeing.

- QC