Sorry, guys. This isn't a witchhunt. I don't want to see pictures of people on this board/thread, again. I'm certain that none of you would enjoy anyone taking pics of any of you and criticizing you.
You can all enjoy pictures of me...I exude presence and power when I referee...I'm an adonis and a golden god...do not worship me here!
OK. I've got it! Below is my plan for my next game. I can't wait to see all the smiles and appreciative nods from the coaches, players, and parents when the game is finished. If only I had known this before. Be consistent Not walk Do the job Sweat Get in shape Pull up my socks Tuck in my shirt Run a little Show respect Use my cards Talk to players Not be afraid to make the big call Not be intimidated Not be the focus of the game Respect the job and the game Not show up late Dress like a referee Not hold grudges against players and coaches No lack in clarity with little kids when it involves foul throws or substitution moments Not have a power Complex Not nit-pick Every time the ball goes out of bounds, take a quick look to see if there are subs lined up Stay true to my word Not guess Know. The. Laws. Blow the whistle. Loudly. Point the direction of restarts. Be on top of the play. Treat coaches with respect Have a sense of humor Remember the spirit of the LOTG. Put your antennas down. Call a girls' game the same way I'd call a boys' game Admit when I've made a mistake Yell "advantage" so they can see why I didn't blow the whistle. Help the players out, especially younger ones. Work together Not make rules out of customs Respect the reactions of the player Not let the other coaches affect me Keep the players safe Call it fair based on what I can see. Keep myself unnoticed Not show up after scheduled kick-off time Not make inconsistent calls. Adjust to the type of game. Establish control at the start of the match. Use good game management skills Be willing to explain Be approachable. Get everyone through the match, uninjured and happy. Be on top of professional fouls and reckless play.
Yes, that is about it. Of course, you could easily shorten that whole list to: Refs: Respect the players and the game. Be professional (you are getting paid). Call the game as best as you can. Enjoy the game - it is supposed to be fun. Coaches: Respect the referees and the players. Act like a professional (whether you get paid or not). Let the refs 'ref' and the players 'play'. Only encourage. Enjoy the game - it is supposed to be fun. Players: Win at all costs (as long as you play for me)
That was a GREAT post, thanks for writing it. First - you, your daughter, and your son are ALWAYS welcome to ref any game that involves me in any way (let me know the next time you are in MD near Annapolis ). It doesn't matter if you reffed the 'perfect' game, what matters is that you care enough to know you aren't perfect and strive to simply do your best. As a coach, that is all I can ask of my players (and all I ask of a ref). Kudos to you and your family. Those folks out your way are very lucky. Of course you are not 'competent' refs. You are WAY above that designation.
I second that. I've reffed with a lot of referees who were not great by any means. The ones who cared are the ones who are worth anything and listened to me as I instructed them. The ones who don't care and are just there for a paycheck, I ignore and request not to ref with them again.
As a player (30+years)/coach (E)/referee (7), only one request. Get in shape! Get in shape to referee, do not referee to get into shape. If you are in good physical shape to last all 60-90 minutes for every game you are assigned, then most other items will fall in place. You will consistently be able to get to the right position to see the plays/fouls/etc. If you aren't physically tired, then you will not become mentally tired so your decision making will be quicker and better. If you are not tired, your personality, mood and emotions will remain where the need to. If you are not exhausted and in pain, you will HAVE MORE FUN!! Knowing what position to get into is all about experience, so that comes with time. Decision making is about confidence and knowledge of the LOTG. Personality and emotions vary person to person. But all of these get better if you are physically ready to do your job....and yes, it is a job. So prepare for it that way.
Just need to vent about an awful officiating crew we had this weekend. Both teenagers. -Non-matching unis for the crew -AR would signal under hand instead of switching hands -Ref awarded a penalty for a pass back to the keeper. -multiple missed offside calles -only 2 officials were there. 1st half one AR, one center ref. At halftime they decided to switch and do a two-man system. Who certifies these kids? I mean it's in a small rural town, but if you can't get even "passable" refs I don't think they should be allowed to host games. Standards are so lax. Sigh.
Actually this is one of my pet peeves, from the ref's perspective. Coaches/teams who are not ready to go when the game is supposed to start. When doing 2-3 games in a row we usually don't have much time between games. Coaches want warmups - on the field, then they have to call all the players over to give them a pep-talk before they go out, then they have to decide who's gonna play were. All while the refs have 5-10 minutes to check in both teams (equipment and rosters), coin toss, and if they have a chance grab a drink after doing a 60-80 minute game right before. How many times have I had to wait for 1) all the players to get in one place to check them in, 2) the coach to have the roster and cards 3) have the money on him/her (not have to have Jenny run over to her mom to get the money or change)? To make it short, have your players/team ready to go. I'll do my best to be ready too.
Don't just vent on here. Let the assignor know what happened. Be civil and cordial, just present the facts as you saw them. Maybe s/he knows what these officials are like and was absolutely stuck, maybe there was an adult who didn't show up, maybe the assignor thinks these two are doing a good job. I try to check out my teenagers, but there's no way I can be at every match, so constructive feedback is a good pointer as to where I need to be next weekend. The certification process does not a referee make. It says that a referee (I'm assuming grade 8s here) attended some classes and passed a multiple-choice test, scoring 75%. You could honestly believe that the "pass back" offence merits a direct free kick and still pass the test. I recently observed one of my young refs supervise an indirect free kick to the attacking team inside the penalty area. I hadn't seen the incident from my vantage point, but I had a bad feeling. Gentle probing at half time confirmed my worst fears, it had been deliberate handling. Ouch. Set right for the future. (Oddly enough, nobody present (U10 match) raised a murmur. Maybe they didn't realise it was in the penalty area.) If the assignor doesn't care, then shame on him or her. But if s/he doesn't know, then nothing will change by the time of your next trip to Nowhere.
I second what Derby54 said, send a message to the assignor, keep it professional, there are some opinions in your issues, some things that flat out shouldn't happen, ever.: -Non-matching unis for the crew Not sure what this means, refs SHOULD have a default color of the gold shirt, other colors as they are able, if one was not in gold, one was, the second may not have had the chance to buy the shirt yet. -AR would signal under hand instead of switching hands Poor mechanics, but not such a big deal in the greater scheme, as long as the call is right -Ref awarded a penalty for a pass back to the keeper. Big mistake. Should be reported to the assignor and corrected. -multiple missed offside calles You probably don't have a leg to stand on with this one. Two main reasons, first if you have 1 AR, were the offside calls on the ARs end? Second, you aren't positioned to call it, nor watching the right things at the right times to call it, in theory the AR should be. -only 2 officials were there. 1st half one AR, one center ref. At halftime they decided to switch and do a two-man system. Unforgivable on several levels, so please report to the assignor. Two issues, switching at half time is unfair to the teams. Second, USSF refs, under NO CONDITION, can do a two man system. In short, people like me do! In short, what the previous reply said. They take a course for a weekend, pass a written multiple choice test with a 75% or higher and "poof they are refs". However this does not mean they are ready to step on the field and ref. I had the pleasure recently of reffing with two first year refs, whom by coincidence I had as students earlier this spring. One got in the 90's on the test, answered all questions without thinking. The other passed but not with a memorable grade and I do remember her in class as needing to be led to answers to my questions some of the time. One did GREAT, one was shakey commenting that "it's harder on the field than in the class". The game was a U13G game, so pretty easy on the ref scale, they were both my ARs. The one who was shakey was the one with the 90+ grade, the one who was solid was the "shakey" one in class. The classroom to the field is a HUGE transition. On the other hand you might have run into two refs who epitomize many of the things both coaches and refs, would like to see stopped: just in it for the money and really don't care about soccer.
Thanks for the advice. I just e-mailed my club's assignor, hopefully he knows his counterpart. I've seen it a lot of it. I've seen a handling in the box be awarded as an indirect. I've seen a foul in the box awarded as indirect. I think most of the time it's not even ignorance of the laws of the game, it's a fear of the thought of deciding a game.
Sorry I was writing quickly this morning, just trying to vent. The reason the AR missed so many offsides? The AR was trying to stay with the second to last defender of BOTH teams by running the WHOLE sideline. Oh to add to the list. They played with the wrong size ball for 75% of the game. I didn't inspect the ball at the beginning of the match, so that MAY have been my fault. But I didn't notice it until another incident. The field was not great and a ball was rolling softly towards the touchline. And stopped right ON the touchline. The center was five feet from it, as was I, and he and I watched it waiting for a player to get it. All of a sudden he blows his whistle and signals a direction. He called a ball out of bounds that was sitting stationary on the touchline for 5 seconds. A couple of these things are minor but I was just painting the whole picture. A blown call here and there happens, but this was bad on many levels. I did not mean to disprespect the certification process. You're right, it's not on your end. There's theoretical and the practical application.
Please add that to the list of things to the assignor, it is the wrong procedure for them to take! The one AR should be running his line as if there are two ARs, the CR has to bust his butt to cover the other half. Again, mistake by the ref, not you, please tell the assignor. One of the refs responsibilities is the ball, checking it and making sure its legal. While this one is a mistake, given the level of mistakes you are also pointing out, this one you might let slide, just due to "pick your battles", also all the ref has to do is say "in my opinion it was over the line" and the assignor then has to side with him. This is something instructors struggle with, how to get some "practical" into the new refs. there just isn't much time in the intro course, we do get them during recertification training, but it is still classroom based, there's mentor programs, on field sessions etc. But the problem is logistics, there are, at least where I am, more demand for refs than refs. This leads to putting refs onto games they aren't ready for, which leads to refs being overwhelmed by events and giving up, which complicates the issue. If you look at the statistics you'll see around a 50% loss rate on new refs in the first year, with others dropping out over the first 2-3 years. If they make it that far, we've probably got them for life! This leads to a lack of refs to run the U12-14 games which is where the 2-3 year experience refs land.
One of the biggest problems I've seen as a referee instructor is that you can't teach practical in a class room. You can't teach foul recognition. You have enough time to cover the laws and the BASICS like how you can be assigned to games. The class is stuffed into 16 hours and most people won't want to commit more time than this to become a referee. It would be nice to make the class longer and to actually teach people how to referee... positioning, foul recognition, mechanics, signaling, player management... etc. But with the rampant referee shortage... that's likely an impossibility, lest we lose possible recruits.
I received my certification in DC and the class was great. It was a small class about 15 people. We went over all the points you mentioned but most importantly there was a good mentor system (with the capital coed soccer league) after you became certified. The mentors were really good about teaching new refs proper techniques of signalling. There was a level of professionalism to what they did through and through. Also one of the best features of that league was to require each team in the league to provide one member to be a ref who officiated X-amount of games. It was a self sustaining system so refs were plentiful and, IMO, because it had become part of the league's DNA good officiating was the norm not the exception. The players knowing that refs were also players, there was more respect towards the refs. It's an excellent model and I wish more clubs would adapt it.
Could you PM me more details about your mentoring program. Our area... we have over 5000+ games all played between 5/15 and 8/1... then USSF stops. We have about 600 refs to cover them all, and that doesn't mean every ref is available every night... so our mentoring attempts have been somewhat unsustainable... as so many games have to be covered by just one ref.
this spring I reffed almost every night of the season because of our shortage of referees. I am only at 2 1/2 years in. Grade 8. I attend every clinic I can and referee academies in two states. I still get yelled at by coaches and parents. I actually think I am doing a semi decent job. But I have been completely thrown in with the wolves. YUou can only learn by the mistakes you make and by doing games that may be uncomfortable. This season I was threatened by a coach after being ejected. Pretty much got railroaded at the coach suspension appeal meeting. Apparently the whole game was the referees fault. I was an AR on that one. I may be done with refereeing also. Using this summer to think about it. My feeling is I am a grade 8 referee. not a professional referee. Not at all why I got into it. I just wanted to help out the kids in our town.
sluggo: I'm a grade 8 with just a few more years into this than you. Sounds like we've had some similar experiences. If you like refereeing, I enourage you to stick with it. What worked for me was getting mentoring from more experienced referees. I was well-instructed and earnest. But I was making mistakes that undermined my ability to be successful. I needed someone outside looking in to help me out. I still make mistakes of course, but I am progressing and glad I didn't quit.
I know what you're saying but the Grade has nothing to do with it. Professionalism is something you do, something you exude. The laws of the game give you complete control of the game. If your board can't back you (maybe there was an extreme case) then no wonder they have a referee shortage. I'm all for the expansion of the sport to as many areas of the country as we can, but let's not lower the standard to make this happen.
Gentlemen (and gentlewomen), vote with your feet. Work for leagues that stand behind their officials and do not buckle under pressure from coaches. Do not work for those who don't. Locally, we have two traveling clubs. One of them has a few coaches who are dingbats, but the club president is an assistant at a local college and very reputable in the area after leading a girls' high school team to 4 straight state tournaments. If one of their coaches acts like an a$$ to a referee, it takes one phone call and that coach has thus used his one chance. The club has gratefully allowed us to use its U10 games this weekend as mentor opportunities for inexperienced officials, with the clear understanding that next year these kids will be ready to center the U12-U15 games and have the kind of feedback to make them better. This club "gets it." The other club, on the other hand, rips referees constantly. Last year, at their tournament, they decided the referee had it in for one of their teams. The parents were utterly atrocious, the coach was awful, and when the assignor asked the field marshals to step in, they turned their back and walked away. Word got out. This year, Club B is having a serious problem finding referees for its tournament. Strangely, we are all out of town (I actually am out of town, incidentally). It took a $200 raise just to secure an assignor for the tournament. Whether they have enough officials remains to be seen. You don't have to be overt in your protests of lack of support. Vote with your feet. There are hundreds of tournaments and leagues out there. If somebody crosses the line, you have options. Remember, karma is a bi*ch and what goes around comes around. Our local adult league nearly went under three years ago because the refs were tired of being screamed at. We went to the league president and said, "Look, you aren't going to have any refs. Nobody wants to work with your players any more. We can give dissent cards until we are blue in the face, but eventually people get tired of the abuse." And he listened, and the league has cleaned up its act. They track cards (better ) and abusing the officials is no longer tolerated. The team captains were told to tell their players to clean it up. Saying you support officials and doing it are two different things. As I have said in another thread, the referees, I think, have a responsibility to try hard and mentor their newcomers to help them improve, too. But leagues have a responsibility to protect them through the errors. And if they don't, then the league will start to wonder why it doesn't have any referees.
What annoys me is when my young teenage son goes to ref a match and gets loads of abuse from parents on the sidelines for doing his job properly. This is the kind of rubbish behaviour which encourages young players to go in for abusing the ref as they get older, too.
Where else in society would it be "acceptable" for adults to verbally abuse teenagers? Why is it accepted in football?
Being a ref and a coach myself, I bite my tongue at all refs but especially for teenagers. But it is exasperating how poorly most teenagers ref. There are good ones but those are in the minority. Teens, here in the US at least, rarely are in a situation (other than reffing) where people are publicly and vocally critical of what they are doing. Needless to say, most pass the written test to become a ref but the practical application escapes them. I mean, when does a teenager ever have complete control and authority over around 60 people (players, parents, and coaches)?
