High school statistics

Discussion in 'Referee' started by Law5, Jul 30, 2018.

  1. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    As we prepare for the upcoming high school season (in many but not all states), I reviewed some statistics from our state's season last fall. Boys' soccer had 133 red cards, up four from 2016. Girls' soccer had 36, up 7 (24%) from 2016. There were 2,712 boys' games and 2.346 girls' games. The sport with the second largest number of ejections was football with 79, down 15 from the previous year.

    Of the 133 ejections in boys' games, only two were coaches. Of the 36 in girls' games, four were coaches. (We do not track the gender of the coach, only the players.) This contrasts with 11 football coaches, 17 boys' basketball coaches and 18 baseball coaches getting the heave-ho.

    There were seven successful appeals of red cards in boys' games, out of 23 appeals made. In girls', it was three successful appeals out of 11. (The athletic director and the referee assignor have to agree that the red cards should not result in the fine and one game suspension for an appeal to be granted.) There were 5.2 ejections per 100 boys' games and 1.7 ejections per 100 girls' games. Boys' ejections were a little more than twice as likely to be in a varsity game than a sub-varsity game. Girls' were six times more likely to be in a varsity game. We have six classifications and the smaller schools were much less likely to have an ejection than the larger schools.

    Why were players sent off? 45% of boys were second caution, but only 33% of girls. Girls, on the other hand, had 31% of their dismissals for violent conduct, while boys' were 18% for VC. Serious foul play was 9% boys and 8% girls. Language was 14% for boys, 13% for girls. DOGSO-F was 9% of boys, 5% of girls. And, finally, 11% of boys and 22% of girls ejections occurred in the player's last game of the season.
     
  2. threeputzzz

    threeputzzz Member+

    May 27, 2009
    Minnesota
    I believe in sub-varsity games here red cards are the responsibility of the individual schools to decide how to handle - I don't think they are officially recorded by the state HS league. We aren't even provided with rosters for the lower level games.
     
  3. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    Given that soccer usually plays a couple of games a week, and pointy ball only one, does that mean there were actually more ejections per game in football than soccer?
     
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  4. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    Yes, a very good point. Gridiron football plays once a week and futbol plays twice.
     
  5. Bubba Atlanta

    Bubba Atlanta Member+

    Mar 2, 2012
    Yep, Atlanta
    Club:
    Atlanta United FC
    What were some of the grounds for successful appeals of red cards?
     
  6. fairplayforlife

    fairplayforlife Member+

    Mar 23, 2011
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I would like to know this as well.
     
  7. Rufusabc

    Rufusabc Member+

    May 27, 2004
    In my state, straight red cards at all levels of play count towards the maximum that prevents a team from competing in post season tournaments. So, every red in freshmen, JV and Varsity is sent in. 2CT is not considered in defining that restriction from post season and the DOGSO fouls are also not preventing teams from continuing. So, its SFP and VC as well as OFFINABUS, taunting, and language.
     
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  8. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    I don't track the specifics of each appeal. However, two typical reasons for a successful appeal are:
    1. the referee says that, upon further reflection, he should have given a yellow instead of a red. One can argue that this is a good thing, sort of, because we very strongly discourage referees from simply not reporting a card when they changed their mind. VERY strongly discourage.....
    2. the referee reports something like"I gave him a red card for a reckless tackle." Careless, reckless, excessive force are now in the NFHS rules, so you can't justify a disqualification when you say that the tackle was reckless.

    A while back, we had a referee give a red card because a player head butted him while the referee was giving him a caution. The school said that the referee head butted the player! Contact with a referee was going to potentially be a suspension from ever playing high school sports again. "He said, she said," right? I happened to know that the host school (not the appealing school) filmed their games. We got the film and it turned out that the player was right. The referee, who was one of our top referees at all levels, had no memory that he had leaned into the player when giving the card and had made contact with him. So the appeal was granted.

    Any appeal can not be made by the coach. It has to come from the athletic director, principal or superintendent. It will only be granted if the school's appeal is agreed to by the "commissioner," i.e. the referee assignor. They can appeal to the state organization if their appeal is not granted, but a successful appeal to that level is very unusual. We did have a referee report a while ago from which the commissioner determined that the red card had been given inappropriately (should have been a yellow, for language). The school however refused to appeal. "We don't like paying the fine, but the kid needs to sit a game." Schools are fined $50 more than they were fined for the previous red card in that sport in the school year, so multiple reds can really eat into their budget.
     
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  9. fairplayforlife

    fairplayforlife Member+

    Mar 23, 2011
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Scenario 2 I am fine with.

    Scenario 1 seems to just beg political pressure to change a referees mind.
     
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  10. BrianD

    BrianD Member

    Manchester United
    United States
    Jun 29, 2018
    I suppose that is proper, but it feels like getting off on a technicality. I doubt the referee thought the challenge was reckless, thought that equated to a red card, and gave it. He probably thought it was a red card foul, and wrote the wrong word to describe it. Referee's fault for being careless.
     
  11. fairplayforlife

    fairplayforlife Member+

    Mar 23, 2011
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    These are examples which referees need to be made aware of though.

    All the refs that get put off when they have their terminology corrected and think the other refs are anal for noticing details like that.

    It’s because that stuff matters when you put it in writing. Though often these are the same refs that give out cards and then done report them.
     
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  12. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    I don't see commissioners pressuring referees to change their mind about what happened. I do know that some referees write reports without understanding the precise definitions of careless, reckless and excessive force. I think it's one thing to correct your report because you didn't understand the rule terminology correctly. It's something else to change a statement of what you think you saw. It must be said that giving a red card in a high school game is a high pulse rate event for many referees and that sometimes leads to less than perfect decision making by the referee.

    I will note that soccer, both boys and girls, has the lowest percentage of granted appeals of any sport, by far. In football, 62% of appeals last year were granted and 34% of ejections were appealed. Boys basketball granted 52% of appeals and 38% of the ejections were appealed. Baseball granted 64% of appeals and 41% of ejections were appealed. Boys soccer granted 30% of the appeals and only 16% were appealed.
     
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  13. fairplayforlife

    fairplayforlife Member+

    Mar 23, 2011
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That 62% statistic is frightening.
     
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  14. cleansheetbsc

    cleansheetbsc Member+

    Mar 17, 2004
    Club:
    --other--
    Twice? More like 3x around here. Action packed season into 8 weeks. Creates a lovely pressure cooker.
     
  15. code1390

    code1390 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 25, 2007
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Same here. We had so many weather issues in March that most teams were playing 3x a week during April.
     
  16. cleansheetbsc

    cleansheetbsc Member+

    Mar 17, 2004
    Club:
    --other--
    Not here, it is as planned. Not every week do they have 3 games, but about 3/4 of the weeks will have 3. Rest will have 2, especially in early September.
     
  17. djmtxref

    djmtxref Member

    Apr 8, 2013
    We have been getting coaches requesting reviews of red cards using the video they have of the games. They get angry when we deny them that opportunity. We did have a case where the referee looked at the video and say "Yup, that was clearly a red card". The coach wasn't happy when we told him that.
     
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  18. 65GT350

    65GT350 Member

    Jun 25, 2015
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Exactly what happened last year when a kid I was trying to man manage committed a stupid foul. Emotions got the best of me and red was shown when a yellow would have been the preferred color. Assignor made me submit the report. Just to be sure the kid wouldn’t sit I made sure to sprinkle key caution words in the report. Ended up being a good thing since he picked up another straight red later in the season.
     
  19. fairplayforlife

    fairplayforlife Member+

    Mar 23, 2011
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    With that knowledge of the red card later in the year it begs the question of if the yellow was really the correct option in the first instance.
     
  20. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    We had an interesting discussion among the commissioners and the state office guy in charge of soccer on Friday about film. One guy sent in film from a parent's phone last fall. It was so badly done, swinging from horizontal to vertical, jiggling around, shifting where they were trying to look, that you couldn't really make any sense of what it was supposedly showing. Yeah, we'll look at it, but we have no problem deciding that that the appeal is denied even though the film might make it appear something happened that the referee didn't see. ITOOTR rules!
     
  21. 65GT350

    65GT350 Member

    Jun 25, 2015
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    In my opinion yes but it should have been his second yellow. I spent a bit of time after that game analyzing what I could have done better and what I came up with is that I missed the signs that my talks were not being taken seriously and should have issued a PI card toward the end of the first half instead of letting an orange card foul and my frustration with him get him sent off. I could / should have been better that night.
     
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  22. Bubba Atlanta

    Bubba Atlanta Member+

    Mar 2, 2012
    Yep, Atlanta
    Club:
    Atlanta United FC
    Yikes! I once stepped on a player's toes whilst awarding him with a yellow card. He and several of his teammates took strong exception to that (the trod-upon toes as well as the card). I more or less ignored both, and happily no charge of player assault was forthcoming against me.
     
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  23. fairplayforlife

    fairplayforlife Member+

    Mar 23, 2011
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Fair enough I guess I was getting at the same point as my post above about making sure things get reported when they should. Especially when they establish a pattern of behavior.

    I had to write a red card report after a post season match last year that was for a coach I had witnessed pull this same post game intimidation tactic in a prior year while I was spectating. In that previous incident no report was filed because the assignor said he would “handle it”.

    I directed the state toward the official that had this happen to him previously so they could get the full story and see that this was not an isolated incident.
     
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  24. AremRed

    AremRed Member+

    Sep 23, 2013
    We are gonna need game- and number of player-adjusted ejection numbers to really compare.
     

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