It's nice to see Oklahoma is no where near the bottom when it comes to high school soccer. Post does look to be lower here though at $45/official plus a small travel pay scale for non metro schools.
I am pretty sure you need to take the test. Also watch the video about rule changes. Video isn't mandatory, but if you want to go up in rank form 0 (starter) to 5 (master) you need to keep up on it. To move up past lvl 3 official they have a second test you need to pass as well. Although, I am not sure how they even use the rankings. Playoffs are assigned by the State. For the first 3-4 rounds they only assign a CR and it is the CR's job to get 2 AR's (HATE THAT). I would assume that once you get to the finals, they are all assigned...
Yes, you take the test if you want to advance, but there are plenty of level 0 referees with 20+ varsity games a season. It's a running joke amongst a few of us (although I am maintaining Master just in case I ever move out of state and want to use it). Even State semis and finals are assigned referee only. I still provide my own ARs.
There may be other states that use the same level system, but I wouldn't count on finding a lot of them. My impression (feel free to contradict me) is that states tend to go their own way on this. Certainly the Arkansas Activities Association (governing body for NFHS sports in AR) would have no idea what Master level in Wisconsin means, nor would they care. They have their own bureaucracy, thank you.
You're right. I saw it when I lived on the border between MN and WI. I figure if I can show an assignor/commissioner I'm at X level and have done Y State semis and finals, it might help a little - but, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Not that I need to do any more high school games anyway.
I think ussf grade might a bit more of an achievement they would factor with a new referee to their state. Or nisoa status.
USSF over NISOA. There are folks around here who think NISOA is often just a good old boys network kind of accomplishment.
I really don't know why Deb doesn't just assign a 3 man team to 3 games in the area and just rotate the man in the middle. I love getting my playoff assignment and then racing to try and find 2 AR's that might be in the area that might not have already been snatched up by someone else looking for 2 AR's. The last few years our little band of officials have just taken turns between CR and AR between ourselves. Still a Cluster f...
They are right! And not just around you, it is everywhere. For most of its years everyone knew that NISOA was a family-run business. PH
Come on there have only been like 12 states. We have like another 38 more to go people! California: High School soccer is setup extremely weird. First off HS soccer is sort of an ugly step-child. A majority of the players that plan on playing at the next level (D1 college etc) most of the time opt out of playing. In past years we have had ECNL and DA players come in and come out of the HS soccer. We have CIF (California interscholastic federation) there are ten sections based on geography. Boys and Girls play simultaneously in the Winter except for 2 of the 10 sections that don't play in the winter (or do like a fall and winter or fall/spring). So we don't have a true "State Championship". We do have a CIF SoCal soccer championship but that only encompasses 4 of the 10 sections. This year we have 8 sections, 3 from the north, that may actually compete in the "Southern Championship" (which is big if they ever want to get close to doing a state championship). The way the southern championship series works is that after each section plays a playoff series amongst themselves 4 section winners get automatic bids into the tournament. The other 4 spots are filled with high ranking runner ups or other winners from other sections (this is all going to change more and likely due to 3 of the other north sections moving to the winter season). The top 4 become host schools for the quarters and semi's. The finals are held in Downey, CA (Los Angeles Area and assigned by one of the Southern California associations). In my opinion I think all the sections kind of come up with their own standards but it has been my understanding that this is the "States" or CIF's standard Statewide General Requirements: -Pay fee's/dues to local CIF accredited association which will allow you to referee in that section. IE pay Sac-San Joaquin Section and if you want to work the north coast you can pay their dues as well (depending on availability and season). -There is a supposed 18 hrs CIF "mandated" training hours. I have yet to see it anywhere in writing. I personally think its just bs coming from my section but who knows. -Concussion training -1 Scrimmage -KNOW YOUR ASSIGNOR My Section: -Pay Dues -18 hrs of training (meetings, on field training, some ussf/nisoa stuff allowed) -ArbiterSports account -18 years old (if you want varsity) we do have some 16/17 years old who help out with middle school and freshmen! -Proper uniform (we use USSF jerseys as do most associations) -Take a NFHS test - KNOW YOUR ASSIGNOR PLAYOFFS -All of the above -Score 80% or above on the test -Work 10 Varsity matches -Be approved by the advisory committee and be in good standing State Playoff's -Same as above for regular playoff's -If one of "our schools" are hosting a state playoff match up to assignor who he/she wants to put on that game. Usually someone who did not see that team for their final. As far as coverage my association has a lot of schools. Our section alone has 100+ schools. Some sections are pushing 175 schools and they have over 200 officials doing high school matches. The thing to remember is that all these schools have varsity but most also have JV/Freshman and they have girls teams as well with all Var, JV, Frosh. The good thing is our section wised up and most school leagues do Tuesday and Thursday boys; Wednesday and Friday girls. With a couple of oddball leagues doing triple headers and Tuesday and Friday for both teams. 85% of our sections varsity matches are 3-man system. If you have a varsity match on Tuesday at 300 o'clock there is a possibility that you may have a 2 man system if we have a lot of games. If that match is at 500pm guaranteed 3-man system. Everything Sub-Varsity 2-man system. With some low-level games doing solo's. Our group also has some small town schools that do triple headers with 2 man systems or some of our official's do solo jv games, and then 2 dual varsity matches and come away with over $200. Some officials love that!
I largely agree. But here in Cal North it is not completely up to the players whether they come in or out of HS soccer. DA prohibits players from playing HS soccer. So some players choose to drop DA and play regular club so that they can play for their school. My CIF section (CCS) prohibits HS soccer players from playing for a club team during the HS season (winter). Nevertheless, outside of DA older youth soccer pretty much stops in the winter enabling kids to play HS. Lots of D1/D2-bound players here play HS. As to the original post - geographically our section is very large. There are four referee associations, three large ones that correspond roughly to the counties in the district, and one shrinking holdover old-boy network. To join the large referee associations you must be a USSF referee, pay $75-100 annual dues, take the NFHS exam and take a fitness test. All our games, Varsity, JV, Freshman are DSC except in cases of a no-show. The referees from the large associations that will see playoff whistles are generally grade 6 or better. The last time I saw the old-boy association on a playoff match the 70+ year old assignor had the center and wore an Adidas WC jersey while his ARs wore USSF.
When I was playing. I was able to play both DA and HS but I think that was the inaugural year of DA and it was weird bc our team stopped from December (with the exception of the winter showcase), January and we started back up in February so that was most of the HS season. But if I remember correctly I think it is up to the section. I'm glad US soccer put an end to that loophole. And some years they allowed it (my brother did his senior year) other years they didn't; his year after he graduated HS.
USSF mandated that DA players not play high school soccer. Essentially, DA is a year round program for would be future professional players. With high school soccer being played, in various parts of the country, in fall winter and spring, it would be impossible to have a DA league that would not play games one season of the year. Additionally, doing both high school and DA in the same season means not going to practices for one team, potentially missing games for one team and playing far too many games, potentially two high school games on weeknights and two DA games on the weekend. Some high school coaches were highly incensed by the 'no high school soccer' rule. Time for them to accept that high school soccer isn't the gateway to the professional ranks, or even college soccer. High school sports has different reasons to exist than preparing players for professional teams. My old school lost three players to the local DA team the first year. Everybody was saying, 'ouch. what a hit.' The team still won the state championship that fall. And two of the DA players came back the next year because they were not playing on the DA team.
No DA in Arkansas, so we hardly have that problem. In fact we've really only had high school soccer for 20 years. When high school soccer was first discussed, some loud voices in Club Soccer said that it would never work because all the good players would stick with their club and skip high school. What actually happened is most of the club players decided they wanted to play for their school rather than the club during the HS season, and Club Soccer disappeared in the spring for those ages. People play the sport for a lot of reasons and, especially for those with no realistic pro or D1 prospects, the draw of the school team is significant.
Illinois $50 to register ($15 for each additional sport) Online open book rules exam Watch online rules update video Watch concussion awareness presentation Eventually, attend a rules clinic or pay to take one online Where I work, Freshman and Sophomore games are solo, JV is 2-man, and Varsity is DSC. In Chicago, even the Varsity games are mostly 2-man assignments.
"prevents" them? I can understand saying that they can not play high school if they are playing on a club team, which many coaches would make a team rule anyway, but I don't think they have the right to tell students that they can only play high school and not choose to play club/DA.
I'm assuming you mean that the school can't say "you can't play DA," and not that the school can't say "If you play DA, you can't play for us," because schools certainly can set up any rules they wish for eligibility. The the point, Michigan certainly has a rule that says that you aren't eligible to play High School sports if you are also on an organized team in that sport. The specific cite:
I can confirm most of the information about Oklahoma and Texas with some slightly different experiences. Oklahoma: The certification is spot on. There is now a virtual monopoly on the west side of Oklahoma. Games outside of the OKC-Norman metro are assigned as a crew. The center of the boys game gets a not-so-small driving per-diem. The pay for games outside of the metro area is much higher because the assigner has higher standards that the previous rural assignors and he can't get city refs go out that far without the increase in pay. Texas: The association dues also very, steeply from what I hear, by association. In my old chapter, there were enough referees that we have 4-man for varsity games that weren't tournaments. In my two years there, I ran 2 lines for the association and did 0 duals. One of the assignors in Houston has told me that they had 18000 refereeing slots last season and I think they are mostly duals. TASO recently (2 years) set requirements that you need at least an 85 on the test to do any games in the playoffs which I heard caused some problems for some associations.
No, of course the state high school authority can't tell someone that they have to play HS instead of club, just that they can't do both (as in if they want to play HS, they can't play on a club team of the same sport during the designated HS season ~3/1 to 5/15). There just aren't enough youth soccer players in Arkansas to support U16-18 club teams during the HS season. It's been ~5 years since I served on the USSF-affiliated state board, but when I left there were about 22,000 affiliated youth players in the entire state (U-littles to U18). The number is probably higher now, but it still isn't very large. When the high school-aged players had to choose between HS and club for the spring, they overwhelmingly chose HS (or at least to the degree that club became unsustainable at that time of year with the size of the player pool).
It's my recollection that, a while back, one state tried to create a school monopoly on sports, which essentially declared that high school age students could only play a sport on a high school team. E.g. "Our schools have a soccer team, so you can only play soccer on a high school team." That's different than saying 'Our schools have a soccer team and, if you play on the school's team, you can't play on another soccer team that isn't part of the school.' I think the courts struck that down as an unconstitutional attempt to control what students chose to do outside of school hours. I think that, and this is a non-lawyer's opinion, a public school could still be found to be violating a student's rights to do whatever they want to do away from school by telling them that they can't do a school activity and a non-school activity at the same time. E.g. they couldn't tell a student that, if you are going to be on a high school soccer team, you can't also work on a political campaign on the weekend. Going to the world of track, could a school tell a member of their track team that they can't run apart from the school's track team practice? Could the school prohibit a student from running in a 5K road race on Saturday because they're a member of the school's track team and that race wasn't a high school track meet? I don't think so. In our state, we've gotten around problems with telling students what they can and can not do on their own time by limiting the coaches. High school coaches, whether on staff or not, can not coach more than two of their high school athletes outside the high school season during the school year. That way, they can't coach a club team consisting of their high school team's players. This has just about eliminated out of season club teams from the smaller areas of the state, because there is nobody else to coach them.
Oklahoma has the same rule, so especially in the metro in the metro areas. The VB coach will often coach girls club ball and vice versa.
The Oregon rule was also created to deal with volleyball, particularly one very successful high school volleyball coach, who was running a year round program. If a girl wanted to be on varsity at that school, they had to play in his club program also. The club coaching income was far above what he was making as a high school coach. There's also a little aspect of 'they're taking our athletes away from us' thing. If a kid is playing club out of season, they aren't going to be playing baseball or basketball that season. Although I've occasionally heard administrators bemoaning the end of the third sport high school athlete era (other than at the small schools, where people have to play three sport or there is no team), my response is always, "Well, if the guy that was playing three sports before is now concentrating on only one, someone else gets the chance to be a starter in those other sports." Nobody's ever come up with a counter argument to that. Guys (not so much gals, yet) are concentrating on one sport because it works. They and their team are noticeably more successful in the sport that they do. My high school alma mater even had a guy who quit playing football to concentrate on track. Now he's walking away with a track scholarship to a D1 school and the boy's team won the state championship. (One of four state championships they won this spring.)