This sounds like Persistent Infringement to me, good luck. Sadly too many stories like that - we owned two houses for a little while because we arranged our closings (selling one, buying the next) on the same day. Our buyer's financing fell through at the last minute...
So I'm helping a fellow assignor cover a U9G Rec game, mentoring 2 shiny new kid refs. Game is lowest possible level and very few players know what they are doing. Two girls are running hard for the ball shoulder to shoulder and the smaller girl gets bumped pretty hard and loses her balance. I'm prepared for possible injury, or at least parental noise, but the kid throws herself into a full cartwheel, sticks the landing, and keeps running. Always something new under the sun........
So I'm watching the first summer HS girls game (I'm the assignor) with all the incoming freshmen playing and the home team is winning handily. CR calls a PK for home team and coach lets one of the newest girls take the kick. She hits a rocket, but it hits the crossbar and come straight back to her. She very purposely avoids the ball and a teammate blasts it in. I was stunned that a player at this level was aware of the double touch rule and had the self discipline to not take a 2nd shot. I gotta believe she was a ref I asked the coach, but he did not even know her name yet!
Almost 40 years ago (before select and HS soccer in Iowa), I had a player u14 player who took a PK, smashed it off the crossbar, and backed off so someone else could take the next touch. His dad yelled for him to put it in the net. He explained it to his dad at a later opportunity. I think I'd call him or another player on the same situation previously.
Had the honor of being in our state's delegation of referees for the Region III Championships last week. My first trip to regionals and I was amazed at all the work and huge number of volunteers needed to pull it off. Every match is watched by a state or national assessor (or several of them if there is a referee they are looking at) although they don't officially assess us as they are "referee coaches" for this event. Amazing feedback! I had much higher games than I expected (first year, old guy - I was looking for U13,14 games and more 4th O than anything). I had U18B whistle, U20G whistle on the third day of round robin and both teams needed a win, then U16G whistle fir the quarter finals and U14G semi AR1 - 8 games in all, no 4thO, 4 centers, 3 AR1, 1 AR2. 10/10 would HIGHLY recommend!
I had a refereeing nightmare last night. Not a figurative nightmare on the field...a literal nightmare as a slept. I dreamt that I was on the field with both teams ready to go, but we couldn't start because I was fiddling with my watch. I couldn't get it set to the right time. After several minutes everybody started yelling at me. Then one coach said, "how are we supposed to take you seriously when you can't set your watch and you look like that?!?" I looked down and I was wearing my new red ref jersey, but jean shorts and tennis shoes and short white socks (I don't think I even own a pair of jean shorts in real life...). Time to throw an extra pair of black uniform shorts in the bag I guess...
Well done sir. My experience this year at the Region II Championships was a new one. This was the first time I attended the event as a mentor, and the head of delegation for my state. I was nervous going in, as I have very little experience in this role. But as the week went on, I became more and more comfortable. My week culminated in a semi-final assignment. As a group, we had 14 officials: 9 received semi-final assignments, 5 received finals assignments, and 3 were selected for the national championships. Great week for all!
Not a house but we just bought a self storage business. It took six months to close, mostly with the lender futzing around like this was the first loan they'd ever made.
Ran a 5K on the 4th. 71st out of 400 runners, won my age group by 3 1/2 minutes. And, therefore, nobody broke my age group record for the race, set two years ago.
I think I have met him. If he is who I think he is, he isn't much older than me. Of course, I have been accused of being an old guy myself.
Thank you, I sure hope so but realistically on the field the time is short. I am very fit, more so than most younger referees (at least those that attend the fitness testing) but I'm still old in referee terms, and I completely understand giving games to the young up and comers as it is a better investment of the limited high level matches to those that can give back far longer than I can. I am extremely grateful to have been able to upgrade and for the matches I do get and especially for this very unexpected invitation to attend regionals as a referee.
Ran into a ref friend of mine last week who is 54. I noticed right away that he had dyed the gray out of his hair. Since we were talking about online dating, I assumed that was the reason. I asked him about it and he said, No, he did it for reffing. He was tired of hearing grumbling on higher level games about having an old guy ref! I knew exactly what he meant; IMO if you are under 30 you get a big benefit of the doubt. I don't think I would go that far, and my wife confirmed that I shouldn't. But the thought of maybe getting a Dracula wig and going as Marco Rodriguez definitely crossed my mind. Maybe not.
Short sided match today......fixing to start my watch, and blow the whistle when the young lady jumps the gun by bashing the ball into the top left corner of the goal!! Yep. Bringing that one back.
On Saturday, I was mentoring referees at a youth tournament. 69 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, not humid. Beautiful day. Four U-12 sized fields. I watched half a game, wrote some comments on 3 x 5 cards for each of the three officials and then moved on to the next field. All of the games I saw were U-12 girls. Most of the comments, then, were about mechanics. One coach is aggressively asking the referee "How is that NOT offside?" The referee says, "Learn the rules, coach." My comment to the referee was that probably wasn't the best response to a guy that has played professionally. We came up with a better response being something like "she wasn't involved in play, coach." Just keep it simple and adult to adult. Another team was all Latinas, pink and white uniforms, each of the girls with her nickname on the back of her shirt. The coach was a tubby guy about 5'1" who talked non-stop. Not berating, just instructing, a classic joystick coach, but it was more tolerable, IMHO, because it was all in Spanish. And his players were doing a very nice job of making blind side runs for balls being switched from the opposite side of the field. We've come so far from the old days when Latino boys played but girls did not. Even these first generation girls are quickly becoming Norte Americanos, where girls play sports too. One girl on another team sees the ball coming to her from about five or ten yards away and she gets this huge smile on her face. Pure joy from just playing the game. And the referees weren't bad, either.