Backbone Support for Volunteer Refs

[Sandcrab Margarita]

Hi all,

I'm a member of our local AYSO Regional Board of Directors, & a question came up at a recent meeting, & I think this group is in a fine position to help us craft an answer.

How do we help freshly-minted volunteer refs exercise their authority to send off coaches?

We have a huge problem with turnover among our rookie referees. Obviously, one of the catalysts for them leaving the ref ranks is the tension coaches create during games. We are constrained in that we can only use unpaid volunteers for all positions within the Region, so we are dealing too with volunteer coaches, who have widely varying knowledge & interpretations of the LOTG. (Safe bet: Law 11 is a mystery.)

In our initial training course, we discuss the authority granted in the LOTG for refs to manage coaches who stray from the technical area and do not behave in a responsible manner. That's book learnin', though, & it doesn't count for much when an inexperienced ref encounters a disruptive coach during a match.

We've discussed using cards with coaches, to reinforce formal cautions, & we've discussed other means to let coaches know formally that their behavior is out of bounds with the LOTG and AYSO rules & principles.

Any suggestions? What hasn't worked for you?

Much Thanks,
Sandcrab

PS No, I've never sent off a coach, but I have issued several formal cautions. Each one has resulted in a complaint about me to the Region...

[mkoenig_1]

Well one key seems to be in your PS. If referees don't believe that they are going to be backed up by the region/district/league/whateveryoucallit, then they are going to be reluctant to exercise this authority as it will just lead to more headaches in the future. I can only imagine that if your simple cautions resulted in a complaint every single time that you issued one, that a send-off would be bound to result in the same.

This leads me to my second point: it seems to me that your board is asking the wrong question. Coming from another angle, isn't the question to be asked "What can we do to emphasize the necessity of responsible behavior by coaches in our league before during and after matches so that the game can be enjoyed by the partcipants?" Many leagues require their volunteer coaches to go through training on positive coaching principles and so on before they take on the responsibility of coaching a team. This is only one potential approach.

Having served on soccer boards myself - I wish you good luck.

[NHRef]

There are a few issues here, first off is one you bring up, your caution to a coach resulted in a complaint against you?? That's rediculous. The people the complaint is sent to should turn the complaint right around and reject it. Assuming you wrote a game report detailing the reasons for the coaches caution, the coaches only unknown should then be how long he is suspended for.

I train alot of youth refs, one of the approaches we teach them when dealing with dismissing a coach, is to simply walk away. Yes its within the refs power to dismiss the coach. However if a coach has gotten to the point where he must be dismissed, one option we give them is to just abandon the game, gather the ref team and leave. This is a somewhat extreme option and if there is any member of the ref team confident enough to dismiss the coach, then that is the preferred method. When I run an AR slot for youth refs I often tell them that if it comes to coach dismissal or conversations, i will be glad to cover their back, or even take over if the coach argues.

The problem will NOT go away until the board takes it seriously and be default sides with the ref until proven the ref overstepped his bounds. The innocent until proven guilty aspect should not apply here. if a ref dismisses a coach, he is guilty and the disciplinary board hearing he now MUST attend will decide the length of his suspension and give him a chance to tell his side. Not other avenue should be available. Also the ref assignor and SRA/SYRA should be supporting the refs as well.

[blech]

Some thoughts:

1. While you might adopt a practice of privately keeping an eye on a ref who is repeatedly issuing cautions or sending off coaches, the public statement must be that the ref is correct and is being supported. Period. Even if the coach was seeking to raise a legitimate issue such as a misapplication of the laws, there is no basis for overturning the referee's discretionary determination that the coach went too far.

2. Training and reminders to coaches that the only things they are permitted to say during a game must be in the nature of positive coaching of their players. (So, even raising a misapplication of the laws is not allowed). There should be a zero tolerance policy on this, and they need to understand that it will involve suspensions and even not being allowed to coach in future years. (Yes, they will then take their kid to your neighboring region the next year).

3. Solicit additional volunteers from each team, one or two for the season. They need not know anything about coaching. Their job will be stop and report referee abuse by their coach and their parents. (The coach will appreciate having this assistance in not having to worry about his parents, but it obviously can create some friction if these volunteers are getting into it with the coach).

4. Try to have additional, senior refs at the fields, in uniform or in a recognized, official jacket/sweatshirt. The coaches should be told that they may appear from time to time, and that they are to abide by any reminders about positive coaching only as if they were coming from the CR.

5. Create a system whereby the additional volunteers, senior refs, and anyone else can report coaches who are not limiting their comments to positive coaching. Once a coach ends up with a few notes, a board member or the region's coaching or ref administrator if not on the board, ought to attend a few games and assess the situation.

In all cases, deal with the coach as necessary, and try to do it early in the season as things only get worse as you get later into the season (and particularly into any playoffs) if bad habits have not been addressed. The additional reality is that parent-behavior will often mimic coach-behavior, so if you can reel in the coaches, you put a big dent in most everything.

Good luck.

[macheath]

(snip)...
4. Try to have additional, senior refs at the fields, in uniform or in a recognized, official jacket/sweatshirt. The coaches should be told that they may appear from time to time, and that they are to abide by any reminders about positive coaching only as if they were coming from the CR.

In all cases, deal with the coach as necessary, and try to do it early in the season as things only get worse as you get later into the season (and particularly into any playoffs) if bad habits have not been addressed. The additional reality is that parent-behavior will often mimic coach-behavior, so if you can reel in the coaches, you put a big dent in most everything.

Good luck.

The above are good--are there coaches that are a particular problem, and known for it? If so, be sure and get a senior person to those matches--maybe not show themselves quite so obviously in these cases, and punish the worst offenders if the bad behavior comes out.

[campton]

I think the ability to show a card to a coach is the strongest message you can show as a youth referee. I think a verbal "this is your warning" does not show enough. Luckily, my league encourages that. With the ability to caution the coach EVERYONE knows what you did and that you mean business.

Also, i dont know many kids who wou ld do what we do for free. I know i would have alot oftrouble taking abuse from a coach when im not geting paid. You should hold a mandatory meeting for choaches stating that they better not say a word or they are going to be suspended. Use the administrative power to breathe down their necks also.

[newsocdad]

This is not just an issue of training young refs to start showing cards to adult coaches. In our rec. league we have had success in limiting parent or coach conflicts with refs by implementing a program whereby we continually reinforced the point that there is to be no negative communication from the sidelines to a ref at all. This past Fall season we had zero problems for the first time -- not even a game report from a ref about a coach maybe getting a little to loud. It takes time -- we have been at this for two years now, but mostly it takes open communication.

We do not expect that our young refs (all licensed through the state organization) are experts. We let our coaches know we anticipate that they will make mistakes and we ask them to do game reports for every game, and include an areas where they think that the ref may need some help. As you anticipate, almost all of the coach reports were of the "ref did fine" variety. Once in a while we might get something like a young ref was calling a great many handballs. Without getting into whether a specific call was or was not appropriate, we can have our ref supervisor simply make a call and give a quick refresher. No big deal.

We also do not expect our coaches to turn over the safety of their players to a 13 or 14 year old. If there are adverse weather conditions or some other situation which leads them to believe the safety of the players is at issue, then it is up to the coaches to think "safety first". If that means stopping the game, then stop the game. We have not had a conflict yet on this policy. Usually, everyone agrees when a game needs to be suspended because of field conditions or weather.

What we also found in talking to our coaches was that most coaches and parents would like to see the games called a little tighter. In rec. level soccer the more aggressive kids will dominate the play and there is little you can do about that as a ref. But, no one wants the aggressive kids running roughshod over the less aggressive kids. The ref does not have to make it out to be a big deal, (I do not think we had any cards given out over the Fall season), but I think that by making more calls, parents and coaches got the feeling that the refs were doing their job and protecting the players.

Teach effort and attitude is very important. If the ref is hustling to be in position, making calls and dealing with possession changes with enthusiasm, it is very hard for anyone to complain if they miss a call. Simply put, effort matters, and the refs will find that they have much more fun themselves if they get into the game more.

Finally, have a procedure in place to deal with problems or issues in a timely way. Our system calls for a board member to contact any involved parties within 48 hours in an effort to determine what occurred and why. That board member then reports what they found to the full board and a disciplinary decision is made. Those decisions could be appealed to the state organization, but so far, all have been agreed to voluntarily. Our goal was to handle all problems before the next week's game.

Good luck

[Tarheel Ref]

I recently learned about a GREAT idea being implemented by some associations in the Northeast...Long Island I definitely remember being told that they're using this:

NO PARENTS Weekends...certain matches during the season are played but the parents are not allowed to attend.:eek: What a GREAT idea!!!

Matches like those would be great to use to schedule "1st middles" for younger refs...lets them focus on the match and not unimportant (in the big scheme of things) distractions from the touchlines.

[rippingood]

Our AYSO region has addressed this issue. Many of the points already mentioned by Blech, et al., are part of our standard protocol:
First few matches by a new referee includes a member of the Referee Council as an AR (or at least a field monitor).
One or two Ref Council members are available at the 'ref tent' during the day.
Enforced zero tolerance policy for youth referees (can supply links to our web site if you wish).

The big issues are
(i) getting enough referees to fill out the referee teams
(ii) rewarding good behavior by coaches, players, etc.

Part of the 'carrot' (vs. the stick) to help us achieve this is to quantify these things into the points earned for winning matches. For our case, we have a two-tier playoff system at the end of the year. There is the friendly pool and the competitive (unfriendly?) pool. The competitive pool includes the teams with the highest number of points, the friendly pool for those with fewer points. The competitive pool determines the teams that will go on to area, sectional, greater glory, etc. play.

Points are determine by games won (6 pts each game) or tied (3 pts - lets not go into this distribution here) and by sportsmanship points and by referee points. A team that has a strong record but does not have referee points or that has lost sportsmanship points can end up in the 'friendly' tournament. To the extent that coaches are competitive, these two components (sportsmanship and referee points) really do seem to help matters.

Sportsmanship points:
each team starts with 10 points for each game. Five categories, 2 pts each: coach behavior, parents’ behavior, player behavior, uniform compliance, (can’t remember the last one...). Over 95% of the teams get the full 10 each game. The contribution to the team standings is determined by dividing the total points by the number of games played (let’s say 8 games). So a team with a single point deducted over the course of the season and six wins and no ties would receive 9.9 + 36 = 45.9 points. The referee is also to include a short write-up on the back of the game card concerning what happened.

Impact: in terms of points, it is almost negligible, but it does help reveal teams who are frequent violators and this gives us a heads-up concerning a potential problem.

Referee Points:
only certified referees can earn points. We have a few AR and Regional AYSO referee classes at the start of the season and one each about halfway through the season to help parents, etc achieve certification. ARs earn 1/2 point for running a U10 or U12 line and a full point for running a U14 line. Referees earn one point for each match, any level (U10-U14). Each team can receive credit for 16 referee points. These are added directly to the wins, ties, and sportsmanship points so, in effect, a team can earn the equivalent of two wins and a tie by refereeing. Also, a new Regional referee works only U10 matches, for example.

Impact: In addition to the points, this is a very good recruiting tool for us. Parents and older brothers / sisters are pretty likely to sign up to help the 'team'. This also helps the 'temperature' on the sideline. After having done this for a few years, it is not uncommon to have more than one certified referee on each team and they help cool off their own irate parents and instill a better attitude among the players as well.

Here’s an example from one U12B division.

Team GamePoints Ref Points Sportsmanship Points/ Game Total Points
Crush 36 12.0 9.44 57.44
Scorpions 27 16.0 10.00 53.00
Bandits 21 16.0 10.00 47.00
Winners 18 16.0 9.89 43.89

Frogs 27 4.5 10.00 41.50
Silverados 12 16 10.00 38.00
Giants 15 4.5 10.00 29.50
Vikings 12 4.0 9.78 25.78

The first four teams go to the competitive tournament so the Frogs, with 4 wins and a tie play in the ‘lower’ tournament while the Winners (3 wins) play in the ‘upper’ tournament because of the greater number of referee points (FYI- each team plays two ‘friendly’ games against the other flight of teams – don’t count for the Game points but sportsmanship pts are included).

These practices are by no means perfect but the impact is certainly positive. I've skipped many details but I hope this gives some idea of what I believe works pretty well.

[macheath]

I recently learned about a GREAT idea being implemented by some associations in the Northeast...Long Island I definitely remember being told that they're using this:

NO PARENTS Weekends...certain matches during the season are played but the parents are not allowed to attend.:eek: What a GREAT idea!!!

Matches like those would be great to use to schedule "1st middles" for younger refs...lets them focus on the match and not unimportant (in the big scheme of things) distractions from the touchlines.

As a ref, sometimes mentor to younger refs, and a coach of a girls team for eight years, let me respectfully say that I think "no parents" is a last resort when all else fails, and I don't like the idea. All of these youth leagues depend on involved parents--coaches, volunteers, fund raisers, or just getting the kids to and from practices and games. To exclude them from watching their kid play is a very negative step, and ought to be done only in specific cases where other efforts to control particular groups of parents have failed.

[Tarheel Ref]

As a ref, sometimes mentor to younger refs, and a coach of a girls team for eight years, let me respectfully say that I think "no parents" is a last resort when all else fails, and I don't like the idea. All of these youth leagues depend on involved parents--coaches, volunteers, fund raisers, or just getting the kids to and from practices and games. To exclude them from watching their kid play is a very negative step, and ought to be done only in specific cases where other efforts to control particular groups of parents have failed.

I agree that excluding all parents is a drastic step but I can see where it could become necessary to make the point.

Listening to all the "coaching" that comes from the parents makes me wonder why coaches aren't more forceful in demanding that the parents refrain from giving "tactical" advice...most times it either makes no sense at all or is exactly the wrong advice...especially when some kid booms the ball downfield turning it over and is then rewarded with all the cheers for "great kick!"

Kids don't have the experience to differentiate between good tactical advice and someone that's just running their mouth. When I was coaching I asked "my" parents to cheer all they wanted but to please not give tactical/strategic advice. It seemed to help a little.

And here's a funny but true cartoon posted on our local forum:

http://eteamz.active.com/concordsoccerrefs/images/ComicRefLoudParent.jpg