Also from the basketball courts - Adrian Dantley switched to the pin stripes. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...famer-adrian-dantley-wont-change-his-stripes/
It was started as a winter fill in by the NASL teams back in the mid to late 70s. Then a couple of "entrepreneurs" started a whole new separate league, the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) which ran in competition with the NASL indoor season for several seasons. Many referees worked in both operations. The first chief referee of MISL was none other than Joe Machnik Ed.D., aka "Dr. Joe" or the "Hockeyman" now the FOX Soccer LOTG expert! Initially there was one referee on the floor with an AR stationed at the half way position outside the boards. There were also two guys to supervise the penalty boxes, and two goal judges who flashed a green light on when the ball went in the goal. No offside. Very similar to hockey with 2 min and 5 min penalties, power plays etc. Machnik was apparently knowledgeable about officiating hockey which is why he got the job. A few years later, they went with two referees on the floor. After the NASL went into a death spiral and collapsed, some teams joined MISL and indoor soccer was basically the only pro soccer left, except for the American Soccer League, which was considered a 2nd division operation with low attendance. Some MISL teams were drawing crowds of up to 20,000! One interesting aspect here is that in the 1980s the MISL first employed a group of salaried "full-time" referees, that included such well-known names as GIno D'Ippolito, Toros Kibritjian, and Dr Herb Silva! PH
Hyang Ok Ri was a starting midfielder for North Korea in the 1999 and 2003 WWC. She became a FIFA referee in 2007, and the 2015 WWC was her first major senior tournament. She was the referee in the 3rd place match of the WWC. She also refereed in the 2016 Olympics, including the Germany-Canada semifinal.
Interestingly, The Cosmos (I don't think they were ever the NY Cosmos, right?) fielded an indoor team. I had a friend who played for them and he said it was a really hard game because of the confined space and the ball would come at youu so quickly especially on shots. He suffered a dislocated ankle that pretty much ended his career.
History lesson: the team was called only "The Cosmos" in 1977 and 1978. Every other year of their existence, they were officially the "New York Cosmos."