I recall playing a game with a goal that had a support bar at top back. Ball went out of play, hit that back bar, and was playfully headed into the goal by an opponent. As both teams got ready for a GK, the refs signaled for a goal. Yes, I said refs--it was a dual ref team, and the closest of them was about 40 yards up the field with no angle to realize it hit the back bar instead of the front.
I have saved a dual partner more than once from that mistake. Good thing I still have the (corrected) vision to call those PKs from 70 yards out.
Here’s why I “love” our sport. In the spring during the weekday, I umpire HS baseball. It gets me out of the house, I enjoy it. It’s horrible baseball. As our sport has grown in quality, baseball has seriously declined. My presiction for my neck of the woods is that in 5 years, there will be only varsity teams. Anyway, the reason for the post! We play our game rain or shine. Baseball can’t. Out of 49 games scheduled for me this spring, I have done 28. 21 rainouts. What a miserable spring.
Here is my invention, anyone is invited to steal it and make a million dollars: Attach something metal to the football goal that makes a loud clanging noise when struck.
I actually used that to convince a group of girls that the ball bounced off the pointyball crossbar and not the goal crossbar. It was about 10"'s higher than the goal crossbar (not sure the exact measurement on how tall a FG bar is from the ground, I don't ref pointyball. Anyway, a few girls came up to me after it rang off the pointy crossbar and said it had gone off the soccer crossbar and therefor was never out. I simply asked them if they heard it hit, they said yes, and I said did it sound like the "doink" you hear when a football clanks off the upright or was it the harder ping when you bounce one off the goal frame. They all agreed with the "doink" and we took the GK without anymore problems.
I’ve been thinking about this lately. Especially since USL soccer continues to grow and outside of big MLB teams it seems some of the other sports markets are hemorrhaging fans. However, I don’t follow MLB. Basically anything but Premier league and a few MLS teams.
I know for a fact that NASCAR has been hemorrhaging fans for several years now. Also, I just heard that MLB is having a fair drop in attendance (this probably being due to the fact that every team in the league plays at least 162 games).
I think I read somewhere recently that MLS attendance is going to exceed MLB this year. Or did I make that up?
I've had 13 soccer games cancelled due to weather. This past Saturday, three due to the threat of severe weather. A threat that never materialized. I worked two for $42, but I will get paid for all five, a total of $145. $103 for just being there.
My theory after reffing and coaching both soccer and baseball and softball? The kids don't like the pressure of baseball/softball. If you strike out, make an error, throw a wild pitch, etc. it is painfully obvious to every person at the field who it was who screwed up. And most adults understand the game and its intricacies and can tell that Johnny didn't cover second base or Susie missed the cutoff. Lacrosse and soccer? For most observers it is a mass of 22 players running at random after a ball. If you fail to mark your man, or if you don't see the pass that would have sprung a break on goal, no one knows. You can hide. Maybe 3-4% of the people watching can tell who the "good" and "bad" players are.
If I'm in a dual system, I usually talk to my partner about the trail official watching high shots when there are football goal posts. The same goes for the trail AR in DSC.
Our state high school championship games for the larger schools classifications are played at a stadium that has gridiron football goalposts. The first couple of years we were at that venue, the state high school association was unwilling to pay $500 for the football goals to be taken down (and, later, put back up) for the championships. So we had that potential problem on the state championships. However, since then, there is a new executive director of the state high school association. He played soccer in high school, not football, so they pay for the football goals to be removed. I've been at this so long that I remember refereeing his games. And I remember my dual partner getting into an argument with his coach, in Hungarian, while I just stood back at a distance and "monitored." "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
I put this out here with trepidation because I do not want to re-litigate this in these pages, just want to share some good news (in my view): Colorado high schools are going to standard diagonal system of control this fall (2019), moving from the double-dual (three-whistle) system - with the caveat that if there are only two refs available (as in most JV matches), the dual system (two whistles) will be used. This is a step in the right direction for Colorado. If someone wants a big debate on this issue, please find an appropriate thread and go at it, just not in the Best Story of the Week.
Not necessarily a "best story", but a real-life tale of what the referee shortage is doing to us. I was assigned to a varsity game with conference championship implications - if the road team wins, they are outright conference champs. Early this week, my assignor puts me on a two-man crew for a JV game right before this varsity game. I emailed back and basically asked, "Are you sure?" Unfortunately, we were out of refs and I had to work the game. The photo shows the results, and this was after I made a concerted effort (and also informed the AD and both coaches) to conserve my energy. I made one sprint in the JV game - I was just constantly moving at a walk. The varsity game wasn't my best effort by my standards. I was out of position quite a bit since I just couldn't get as wide as I wanted to get - the legs just weren't there. One of my son's friends plays on the winning team and said I did well, but I just didn't feel like I usually do before a big game. If we had young referees, the JV game would have been a great game for a young referee to be on the game instead of me. The shortage is real.
I don't trust those elevation numbers at all. I've done games on a completely flat field with Field Turf and it says I've gained a couple hundred feet of elevation. I love my Garmin, but some of the stats are a little, shall I say, interesting.