why you got started

For me, I was at the field all the time (I lived about two blocks away) watching games in the evenings because well... cheap entertainment!

I got recruited as a club AR all the time, so figured that I may as well learn what I was doing and make some money at the same time.

It did mean that the beer during the game (there was a beer store right beside the fields... best sales of the year on a particular tournament weekend... hahaha) was consumed at a significantly lower rate. Alas.

 

When I moved to a new, semi-rural location and helped start a soccer program, we needed people to officiate games. I started refereeing practically with the LOTG in my hand, but the game was new to almost everyone so I got away with more than a few blunders. A year later I took a grade 8 course and became a "real" referee. So I started refereeing solely so my kids could play, but I keep doing it now that my kids are grown because I like it.

 

Got recruited to help a friend coach his child, because he knew nothing about the game and I knew a little bit. Then after a couple of years, making new friends, got recruited by the head referee to help with referees for the local rec program. And then on from there . . .

 

I'm a bit of a combo of the poll answers. I was being an AR for my sister's AYSO games my freshman year of HS because each team needed to provide an AR. The next fall I took the AYSO beginner class. I also happened to be cut from our sophomore soccer team so I was doing it to stay involved. Then a number of years later, at the end of my second year of AmeriCorps I took the 08 class to make some extra money because I was broke.

 

My son started refereeing when he was 13. I was his ride to the pitch, so I ended up hanging around watching. After a season of that I decided I might as well be on the field doing something instead of just standing around watching. He lasted another couple of years before it became clear to him that he didn't have the temperament to be a ref. His younger brother reffed for a longer period, but I think a bad experience with over-invested rec coaches took a toll on him.

 

Kinda multiple reasons for me. First at 14 my parents thought it was time I had my first job. Back then I thought 8 -12$ a game was a lot of money. But also our club lacked enough referees. Also my senior year in high school (while still playing) I also refereed in varsity high school games. Would kinda give me a lot life long hate of duals since these were my first times to use the whistle for that age group and my dual partners were less competent than even myself. Also games with duals were assigned that because these were considered the less important games. It was a case of who was ever available to do them. I believe at the the time there was a rule that you had to of graduated from high school before doing varsity games. Naturally it wasn't enforced if there weren't enough referees to go around.

 

That's a good question. I'm not really sure. I guess it's because I was asked. My youngest son started play at age 8 and I enjoyed watching him, but like most parents I run into these days, I really didn't know or understand the rules. Unlike most parents these days, however, I always kept my mouth shut.

At one game my son was playing in, the keeper came out of the penalty area and collected the ball in his hands. Half the fans thought it was a DFK and half said not IFK. I had no idea, so I thought I would start reading the rule book.

Not long after that I was at my sons indoor game, waiting for the start and started a pick up game of ping pong with what I thought was another parent. It turns out he was an soccer official at a class and we stated talking about officiating. He said another class would begin in about a month and suggested I take the class. I did and the rest is history. I'm actually working with him on a high school game tonight.

So I really didn't know what to select from the poll, I went with talked into it by a friend, since he is my friend now.

Mark.

 

Started when coaching my son's U8 AYSO team. Rarely if ever were there referees for the U8 games. Now it's turned into a way to keep fit (and occasionally get paid for it in USSF/NFHS games). My son goes to U12 next year and I'm hanging up my coaching hat but keeping the ref hat on, so looking forward to more games. Also considering taking over referee recruiting/administration for our region -- I can count the number of active referees we have on two hands -- and get my instructor certification as well.

 

I had a USSF D license and was coaching a competitive boys' team at the time. (Our now SYRA was one of my players.) I wasn't very happy coaching, however, mostly due to a few parents of players. My older daughter was playing for the same club and I went to her game one day. No referee showed up. I was wearing a black sweatshirt and navy pants, so the other team's coach thought I was the referee. I was drafted. My daughter's team lost, 1-0, and I gave a yellow card to a player from the other team for what I now know to be delaying the restart. I just happened to have a yellow piece of paper in my pocket. After the game, the other coach and our coach got to arguing about the "card" while the assistant coach for the other team came around from the other side of them and thanked me.

Then the coach of an older age group boys' team, which was suppose to play there next, came over and asked if I had to go some place "right now." My daughter went home with my wife and I stayed to do a second game. Took the grade 8 course, the instructor invited the two adults in the class, one of whom was me, of course, to do high school games that fall and I was off and running. The high school assignor's hard drive crashed a week before the first assignments were to be distributed. (This was before the internet, of course.) I got in line at the meeting and he told you where to go for the first two weeks. He didn't care who you were or how much experience you had. The first dual I ever saw was varsity boys' between two teams that were both ranked in the top 10 in the state at the time and I was R1.

Once my son got to the competitive level, I was able to get out of coaching completely.

 

The day I signed my son up for U8 AYSO, and before I met and agreed to help the coach, one of the board members "emphasized" that there are lots of volunteer opportunities and what would I like to do. Snack bar and event planning sounded, well, dreadful, but taking a free class to become a ref sounded kind of cool and a good way to get involved.

A year later I left LA for Pittsburgh. Not so much AYSO around here. The following winter did my Grade 9 plus a Bridge class. After a couple years I took over development for my club, then a few years later added assigning, then after another...9 years (with a HS sophomore in the house) I decided to start doing NFHS.

My wife asks sometimes why I don't throw out 10+ years of Law books. I just can't...

 

For me two incidents:

1) after watching a boys HS varsity game in which the two "older" referees were constantly WAY behind play and calling offside (or not) 20-30+ yards behind play, the two referees lumber/escape from the angry mass of away fans into a car parked in a handicapped spot with a HANDICAPPED STICKER on it. Disbelief that these two guys had any business keeping up with a varsity boys match

2) Another game that same season we have a boys varsity HS game where only 1 referee shows up. Not a single offside is called even though there are multiple instances. My son gets hurt coming out on a ball where clearly (like 10 yards clearly) the attacking player is OS but nothing called.

I said this is absurd, these players work too hard for this kind of refereeing. the first two guys had no business near a HS varsity boys game and the second poor schmuck got stuck by himself, both because there simply were not enough referees. Decided to be part of the solution.

 

I started for two reasons. First, a lot of my recreational indoor soccer team had moved away from the area, and I wanted to stay involved in the game. Also, I began student teaching that fall. Since I was student teaching in a school all day, the only job I could do was as a NFHS referee.

 

A combination of reasons. My daughter played U6 through U13 rec league. While she was U13 I saw on the U6 fields that some were "officiated" by coaches. I asked one of the U13 referees if they were shorthanded and he said "always." I told my wife I know enough about soccer from watching my daughter all these years to referee U6. She said go for it, that it would add to the exercise I was already doing to get down below my then 400 lbs.

So for the fall season all I did was rec U6 and U8, and was happy. The following spring I was talked into being an AR for a U10 game. Then another, and another. Then more than a few referees said I should certify for USSF. So I did, and my first games were solo U9 and U10. Much faster and better skill, so it made me focus more. But I hated it...at first. My foul recognition at that level sucked, though I couldn't tell what was a foul and what was just clumsy. At 46 years old, coaches thought I had been refereeing for decades and couldn't believe I was so bad.

My first game as center of a three man crew was a near disaster. A jerk coach yelled loudly "Ref, you don't have a clue!" The game wound up 13-0 in favor of said jerk coach and I was about ready to give up. My next game that day, I was AR and the center was very good and helped me a lot. Made me feel better about myself. But I didn't center another game until six months later.

As I type this, I have officiated 258 games, centered as high as D1 U12 and AR R3PL U13. And, so far, have lost 50 lbs. Now the games I hate are very few and very far between. Hearing in Dothan while walking off the field a U10 player saying "I wish you were our referee" as he is walking on makes me feel good. Hearing a U12 player say "I've been playing soccer five years and I know a good referee when I see one, and you are a good one" makes me smile. And having assignors trust me to teach these youngsters the laws of the game makes me feel that I am filling a need in this game, no matter how small it is in the grand scheme of life.

OK, I rambled enough.

 

At 47, I knew nothing about soccer, but our club needed referees, especially adult referees. I am one of those people who are never just along for the ride, and I believe that volunteerism is the key to so many things, so I stepped up and got started. How great it is to be out there on the pitch and making sure the kids can play, and contributing to the quality of the experience. I would do it for gas money and the exercise.

 

Basically that was all anyone got anyway many years ago!
I remember the first time I encountered someone who was doing it mainly for the money, multiple
games per day.
I was shocked and also felt sorry for him at the same time.

PH

 

I always loved playing soccer as a kid- I mean loved it. I thought I was decent but had no idea how unsophisticated I was until I went to college and tried to walk on the team. Still, always a fan.

Fast forward to having a son playing, and being disappointed that, as he progressed from child-herd soccer to something slightly more sophisticated, the quality of refs was really pretty abysmal. Got my grade 8 in 2010 at the ripe old age of 43, figuring that participating gives you more right to complain, right? My son made a lot of progress and as he got on better and better teams, my knowledge of the game grew as I refereed better and better games, and we could give each other insights.

I think refereeing is easy. Refereeing well is pretty darn hard: being mentally sharp while being challenged physically means that I always have a huge amount to improve on.

 

Two sorta-simultaneous events:

--to get some exercise and just to do something different, plus some undirected influence from coworkers, I started playing some after-work pick-up soccer. I hadn't played in 20+ years and I wasn't any good then: I certainly wasn't now, and my general lack of ball-handling skill was getting me yelled at (and I wasn't feeling good about it myself).

--I do alumni interviews for applicants to my alma mater, and I had just met the most impressive high school candidate I had ever talked with, just based on her own maturity. We dug in and I discovered she had been a softball umpire with her dad for a number of years, and by that point was both umpiring and teaching adults. The communication and conflict management skills she had learned were really impressive, and as the dad of a girl who loves watching soccer and loves rules, I thought this would be perfect. So we attended a grade 8 class together, where she asked probably the most insightful questions of the day.

Now my daughter referees occasionally, in between one activity or the other, and really enjoys it: I'm a few years in and and keep finding myself deeper. And yes, I still get yelled that, but at least this time I know I'm good at what I'm doing.

 

I started ref'ing partly to stay in shape -- then fairly quickly realized I needed to stay in shape to ref.

 

I was 11 and my dad was going to a 2 day ref clinic. He took me the first day to get me out of my mother's hair-- he was thinking we'd be outside and they could have me chase balls or something. It was completely in a classroom, but I was interested. The league ref assignor was taking the same class and said if I passed the test I could ref (I still wonder if if he thought I was older than I was). I passed and found it was kinda fun, and when you're 11 getting paid is pretty cool. So I kept at it through high school, and then took a very long break until I had my kids playing in AYSO.

 

Kids mostly. I played and did some reffing when I was a teenager, but it was unpaid back then so I stopped when I hit College. I had been coaching my then 15 yr old since he was 4. We moved from a Twin cities suburb to the sticks of Western WI. They had youth soccer there, but WAY disorganized. I took a position as coaching lead for the program and met a bunch of kids my son would be playing with. Found out that the school didn't have a HS boys soccer program even though the school had a grass soccer field complete with scoreboard. I had a bunch of kids come up to me and ask to go to the school board to ask to bring boys soccer on board. I did and we succeeded to get it added. Then I was told by their AD that they had no refs in the area. So I took one for the team and started reffing again. My first official game was a HSB center. I have learned a LOT since then. A few years later I took the Grade 8 class just to learn some more.

 

I started at age 14. My younger brother and sister were playing in a local youth league. Each team was supposed to supply referees to the league. My parents sort of "volunteered" me to do this. I was hesitant at first, but a little $ changed that. I started out doing duals on U8, U10, and U12 games for $15-20 per game. 26 years later, I'm still going. I started working high school games when I turned 18. And finally, I started working college games at age 25. Being a soccer referee has allowed me the opportunity to travel a good portion of the country, and meet countless people that I would have never otherwise met. And most of those people I still call friends. I love the game. I get good exercise. And the money is not bad either!

 

One of my friends had a son who was about 14 that wanted to be a referee. She had to drive him to class. It didn't seem like a good use of time to drive him there, drive home and then repeat the trip to pick him up, so she decided to just stay at the class. If she had to sit there, she might as well take the class. If she was going to take the class, she was going to take the test, because she had to get a better score than her son. If she passed the test, she might as well register. Eventually, she became a State Referee and had the whistle for a high school state championship game. The son eventually became a Marine weapons specialist.