We have 10 new referees in our high school association this year. Total membership of 40 referees. I realized after last night's games that I have worked at least one game this season with all 10 new referees. So either A) my assignor doesn't like me, or B) maybe he thinks I can help these new referees.
I believe in our chapter its D) The assignor doesn't pay attention to who he assigns where and with who he assigns them as the Big Chief tablet is not capable of accounting for that much detail.
I'd guess either B or C) Balance the quality of referee crews. I find that the referees I work with on HS games are usually somewhere between bad and okay and most of my Regional/State Referee friends have the same experience. We think it is because we are trusted to not cock up the game and can carry the ARs
40 referees is so low... we have almost 5x that amount of referees. I imagine you guys have around 30-40 schools you cover with duals?
Our association has been trying a new approach this year. Some of the newbies/problem children have been assigned a center with AR1 as their experienced mentor. The mentor is expected to give them feedback at halftime and after the game, with a written version going to the assignor. The mentor gets an extra $10 per game.
As an assignor, I absolutely try to balance the crew. In the fall, I'll have 18 of my top 20 referees with college assignments, so there's no way I can put two people who could take the whistle on one game. So, two good D1 teams get one from list A and two from list B. A good team and a bad team might get one from list A, one from list B, and one from list C (so that the JV at least as a B-lister on the crew). Two bad teams might get a B with the whistle and two Cs on the line. Yes, sometimes I give the B-lister the Varsity whistle and ask the A-lister (now AR1) how things went, because I can't see everyone.
Actually, we have only have 13 schools in our region that play soccer. Some nights are better than others, but a majority of the games are 3-man crews. Our goal is to get to 50 refs within the next 2 years.
A little more of an explanation. I have been a high school referee for 26 years, and the assignor is my brother. So he probably wants me to help them out, and he values my opinion.
No, JV games get duals, at most (I did JV girls yesterday solo, but it's usually duals). We have a broad range of varsity games in terms of player skills, good/bad attitudes, aggressiveness of players, etc. No, problem children/newbies aren't getting highly competitive varsity games. But almost all of the games at this point are non-league games. I mentored the referee on one such varsity boys game earlier this week and it was 6-0. Although the "OMG" varsity girls game wasn't officially a mentor assignment, the assignor wanted feedback. The final was 10-1. Nothing either of those referees did or didn't do changed the outcome of those games. But we have the number one ranked girls team in the country right now and they aren't going to have a referee who is going to need to be mentored on one of their games.
Funny you should mention that. At one point, I heard the visiting team coach telling the bench players, "This is what happens when you don't put in the work at practice." The visiting team is from a small, close to unique public school, a single high school school district with a 9:1 student teacher ratio, foreign languages starting in the grade school, and no home in their district is worth less than a million dollars. Zero students qualify for free and reduced lunch. They play their home games in a college stadium. At least the girls weren't acting all whiney and entitled, which has been a problem with their boys' team in the past.
Tuesday, I check my schedule that is downloaded from the Refview site and I see that I have two contracts for games, one @ 4:30 and the other @ 6:15, glancing I see that both are the same school location so I am guessing it is V then JV. I get to the game I am the first one there and check to see I am contracted for the CR, so I leave my phone in my bike and head to the field to get ready. Other 2 refs show up and I am yapping away and the one official says "are you going to center?" I said it was on my contract and he said it was on his as well. The other official says it was on his also contract, but he only AR's (his choice) so he knew he wasn't. I ask The other guy how many CR's does he have this week, he's says he centered last night and Has another on Thursday, I say I AR'd last night and also AR Thursday. He says I can have it and I tel him he can CR the JV game and he said he didn't have a contract for a JV game. The other guy says the same, uh-oh... I go to the home coach and ask if there is a JV game following this one, he say's "nope, other team never has a JV team". Now I am second guessing myself about what I saw on that 2nd contract. Was it for another school??? I left it on my bike as well... No time to go get it, I have to wait until halftime to make the run. So we start the game. It is CRAZY hot (86° feels like 91°) for our neck of the woods since the last two weeks has been PERFECT soccer weather (65-70°) at game time. Nobody is used to the sudden change in temps over the past few days and boys are getting tired after 12 minutes. Lots of subs so we weather through. Middle of the road talent match but these schools are close together and have created a rivalry, I can sense it early between a few players for each team and it culminates about 25 minutes in when a player from the home team deekes a visiting defender that loses his footing. AS the attacker goes by I hear him say "Nice try man" he has two more touches before he is dispossessed and the then decides to plow through the back of the player that dispossessed him. I blow my whistle for the foul and the defender that was deeked walks by and claps his hands towards home player that deeked him *tweet*. Loudly call both players over. Home player I tell him NOT to talk to anyone on the pitch but his teammates. Defensive player I tell him that COULD be considered taunting and in HS that means you are gone. Capiche? Both nod and off we go. 1st half ends and I sprint to the bike to make sure I don't have another game to go to. Nope, it clearly said JV game, so I am in the clear. I pull together the coaches at halftime and ask if they would like a water break at about 65 minutes. Both agree and away we go. Home team is up 3-0, visiting team getting upset and one player has gone through the back of the home team for the third time. I blow the whistle and let him know that was his last foul that I was going to let slide. 2 minutes later there is a reckless foul against home team outside the 18. I YC the Defender and walk him over to the bench to tell the coaches and scorekeeper. As I come back home team asks for 10 and I move them back from the 5 yards they were at and I hear the home player that I talked to earlier say, "I told you guys you were NOT close to 10 yards away" I turn to him again and tell him "What did I tell you about talking to the other team." He said sorry. score is 3-1 and becoming heated in the last 10. Visiting defender goes through the back again and I blow the whistle and give him the YC. The home player that I have talked to twice then claps as I am handing out the YC. I turn to him and said I warned you, so I give him a YC for UB... (Not the RC for taunting). Didn't think the game needed that. Game ends 3-1, home coach comes over and thanks me for the YC to his player, he has talked to him before about just what he did the whole match. and I ran about 5.7 miles. WAY to much for that temperature. I get AR's the rest of the week so I am ok about it.
I have 220 in my group. Today, I need 145, counting occurrences where I have someone doing an early game in one location and a later game elsewhere. I have 143 working. The rest are unavailable for one reason or another. Two MS games will get done solo (one by me, before I rush over to a HS to do the Varsity).
Not sure if best story or worst story... Was doing a women's game as AR1 Sunday. About 25 minutes in, my watch beeps and asks "Have you completed your workout?" Turns out that I'd been standing on the halfway line without moving for over 3 minutes. It was a pretty one-sided match unfortunately.
I'd like to say that I hope @ManiacalClown, @Houston Ref, and others in the Houston are doing okay. Locations with red are places where the drainage is over the banks and yellow is at risk of flooding. Good news is that my house is okay. Bad news is that I-10 is impassible at several locations between work and home.
Other day I'm 2-man JV and AR for VAR a million miles from my house to teams I don't see very often. Other ref is new to me, older guy, been at it for years (This is my 4th total, 2nd full for H.S.). I ask which side he wants, he says "I'll take the bench side and we can switch for the next game, cuz it'll be harder over there." Thought that was an odd thing to say out loud, but whatever, I'm working on handling coaches as part of my development, so it's cool with me. Game is extremely one-sided, he's in his corner for nearly the whole match. I'm blowing my whistle for subs since he's always on the goal line calling for corner kicks, and I'm pinched way in on the field. A few times we had a nice simultaneous whistle, thought it was good as we were on the same page. Then, at the half, he asks how long I've been reffing, and after I tell him he starts telling me to never whistle in subs on his side. Says we had "way too many double-whistles". It wasn't how he was taught and it shouldn't ever happen. Game ends a tad early, about 4 minutes. Next match CR isn't there, and 15 minutes to match time this guy's griping about it, so I text that they want to start early. Coach says "let's get going, and old guy just rolls with it, does the pre-game, coin toss and when they're playing the anthem, with 10 to go to proper game start time, our CR walks up, flustered. Right before heading to his side of the field old guy explains that he likes to hold the bottom of the flag down when signaling for subs and he likes to hide the flag when they're subbing (yeah, no dip, really? Except the holding the bottom edge of the flag, is that some old holdover from along time ago?). Match is a blowout. At half he runs to his side of the field, then runs back because he's forgotten his flag and I have to stop CR from beginning because he doesn't see old guy still jogging across the field (he also barely mirrored me, coaches had to yell for subs). Not an amazing story by any standard, but it chafes my chaps when older guys with 153 years of experience feel like they have to chide people. I'm always ready to learn and take advice, but it's difficult to take advice from someone who treats you like a moron. I normally love working with the older guys, a lot of people don't, because it can be more work, helping them a bit more from the side, but I love hearing stories and getting advice, even though sometimes it can be kind of bad. I just smiled and said "sure thing" and went about my biz, but it was pretty irritating.
Had my first HSBV match on a new turf field they installed over the summer. Not bad, but the JV game was @ 5PM and this warm weather we have been having made it a hot one. That turf fells like when my "friends" go by my bike and crank my heated grips up to 10 when we are parked and then I get a mile down the road before I realize my hands are burning. Same thing, but with feet. This pitch actually had a "crown" on it as well. Looking across there was just a big hump in the middle. On all other turf fields I have been on I have never seen that. Maybe a new thing they just started doing in the last year? I have another match on a different field that the same company did over the summer, I will have to see if that is done the same way. They also have the newer LED lights for the field, I am AR2 for the 7PM game and we are about 10 minutes in and I see the lights haven't turned on yet. I wave to the guy in the booth about the lights because it is getting dim and Wasn't sure how long they took to get up to full. Turns out, about .05 seconds. Ball goes OOB and the guy flicks a switch and BOOM instant BRIGHT light. The whole crowd goes "Oooohhhh" and I was quite impressed myself. I think the guy in the booth knew it would be a startling experience so he did it while the ball was out of play, smart guy. Uneventful match. It was a great game in the first half, 0-0 and well played. Visiting team was not very deep though and showed in 2nd half, 4-0 final for home team. Nice cool night, so when we went to our bags at the end of the match they were all wet with condensation. Should've covered them..
Interesting that a turf field had a crown. That should not happen. Turf fields start with a concrete box, that has drain holes at the bottom of the vertical walls. Then they put rock in the box, typically ending with a layer of pea gravel and maybe some sand. Then the carpet goes on top of that, followed by the "Nike grind," which is actually from ground up tires that have the steel belting removed. The manufacturers promise that the field can take some amazing amount of rain per hour, although that isn't the way it works in the real world, in my experience. Usually it's the drain holes are clogged up. But there shouldn't be any reason for a crown on a turf field because the rain water is supposed to go down through the surface, not out towards the sides.
Yea, I watched them build the one in my hometown. Big hole. Big rocks, then smaller rocks, then gravel, sand and field. I have never seen any standing water even after a quick snow melt of over 1'6" of snow. It looked like the lines weren't completely straight going across the pitch, like the field was MADE to be layed flat but this hump just twisted the line a bit.