First game of my HS season last night, AR varsity boys, at one of the richest schools in the city, with a private-college-like campus, vs. one of the very poorest, with a very large component of African refugees. Home is up 2-0 at the half, but visitors come back and finish it with a tie. I felt bad calling back what would have been their winning goal for offside, especially with a LONG wait-and-see for whether the onside attacker was going to overtake the offside one and get the ball first -- but it was a fun game to watch and I had a really good seat. But the best part was schmoozing with the young national-track center before the game. We got onto something where I said my youngest child was born in 1986, and he said "Wait a minute. How old are you?" "Well, I just turned 68." "Man you gotta be kidding me. You look really good!" "Well thanks. So do you." Made my day.
And then on the way home, my anti-lock brakes saved me, by no more than three feet, from plowing into a deer on the dark, damp road going the back way out of the campus. That made my evening. (The deer's too.) Especially as I had just picked up the Jeep from the body shop that very afternoon ... would have been highly irritating to have to take it back there the next day.
I produced the radio broadcast of Pat Dye Outdoors for a few years. A caller asked what part of the season is best for the taste of venison. His brother Wayne said "The best time of year is in March." Coach Dye quickly said "Now we aren't advocating killing deer out of season..." but Wayne went on to say "I hit a deer with my car in March once, and it was the best tasting deer meat I ever had."
One of our employees works remotely from her home in Montana. Middle of nowhere MT (the street is, literally, named Hole In The Wall), on 65 acres, where she, her husband and two 'tween daughters moved about three years ago, from the suburbs of Portland. The first week they are there, her husband is at work, the kids are at school and she sees a mountain lion in the yard! She calls her husband at work and his friends there tell him to call the Montana Wildlife people. So two guys over 70 years old come out and she, her now home from school kids and these guys go 'walk the property.' They come across four hooves sticking up out of the ground, half buried, stomach ripped open and half eaten. The old guys tell them that mountain lions will frequently bury a kill and come back for a snack later. They said they'd remove the deer and use it as bait to deal with another mountain lion "up the road." One daughter cries, "Bambi's been killed!" The other asks, "Cool! Can I touch it?" Mom says no. The old guys then warn her to keep her doors locked because it's almost bear season and they may be coming through the yard. Bears have opposable thumbs to open doors? Who knew? She says, "It's like Wild Kingdom out here all the time."
Referee fans at Islanders/Canucks game. They could be heard cheering when a whistle was blown and chanting "Let's Go Refs.
I always tell friends I root for the referees because when they have a bad game everyone has a bad game.
I tried to convince a local college coach to identify his most important game and declare it "referee appreciation day". As with many of our discussions, he looked at me like I was crazy.
Broke my duck, as the Brits would say, with my first game of the year. Men's O-40 1st. Nobody coming in with tackles, more just trying to fish the ball away. Mostly short passing game, so I only ran four miles. Two AR's I'd never worked with before kept things easy, since we had probably 10 offside calls and only three or four fouls. We had some laughs, especially with guys I haven't seen in a while and nobody got upset about anything! Even better, it didn't rain. The first game I have ever done with the previous year's badge, however. Still don't have 2020. I don't think anyone noticed. So, is a 'region' bigger than a 'state' or smaller? Maybe it depends on whether you are from Cal North or New Hampshire.
Well, I'm done with a week, 8 days really, that saw me reffing 6 of them. Saturday: 2 adult state cup games Sunday: 1 adult state cup game Monday: Go watch USWNT Tuesday: JV/V Boys 3 man Wednesday: JV/V Boys 3 man @ 46 degrees and 25 mph winds, no hat, no gloves Thursday: Played Over-30 Friday: BV/GV 3 man Saturday: Men's Championship (2nd division) center & Premier (1st division) AR Some highlights... In the Men's Championship, one of the players must have taken a referee course at some point because he kept saying, "There's just too many careless fouls." There wasn't anything really PI or UB about them, it was just sloppy. Friday night BV. I told a player whom had blood on his shirt that he had to go off. He said, "No. You didn't call the foul so I'm not going off." Note that he committed 3 fouls and in the process of the opponent trying to get away, got a wrist to the mouth. I just said, "You have to go off." turned and called the trainer and the kid tried to square up to me. Thankfully he was far enough away that two teammates grabbed him and dragged him off the field before he could close down on me. Wednesday night BV. The hardest player to handle, apparently, is a referee. He also got the only yellow card of the match that was border line SFP and almost started a fight. State Cup Center: I passed my maintenance assessment although I didn't like my feedback. I should say, I didn't like that I had opened myself up for that feedback. Interestingly, because the best league in Houston sanctions through USSSA, none of those teams can play in the State Cup and the games I did there would have been 3rd or 4th division teams in Houston. I put in about 46 miles and my left knee started giving me some aggrivation so I think it is time for a new pair of shoes. I've liked the ones I'm in, I'd like to just get a new pair, but the new versions appear to have some rather dramatic changes
I start this Sunday. First games since mid-December. Four U-littles, 7v7 with a buildout line. All girls. Easing into the season. It should be fun!
My best story of the week was last Tuesday. For my 76th Birthday, I had brunch with my wife, daughter and her significant other. Then played duplicate bridge with my wife - not winning, but placing. Then did a dual for a girls/ boys varsity double header. No Yellow cards. First game the home girls won 1-.0 on a PK. The home boys lost 6-4 after being down 4-0 in the first half. Both games were pretty spirited, but they were all there to play soccer.
We had a nice session with some of our area's younger upcoming referees tonight. University women's exhibition game against a local club team, and we got permission to "rotate" the ARs to use these young ones for 15 minute stretches each to mentor them and get them used to the higher level/paced game. And for the last 15 minutes, one even got to step into the middle to finish out the match. Lots of great learning moments and some excellent skills seen too. It's nice to be able to work with the younger crowd to give them hints and tips and point out things they may not have even noticed otherwise (both about mechanics and the game itself).
For health reasons I made some drastic changes to my diet and exercise routine a couple months ago. The scale read 199.8 this morning - it's been over a decade since that first number was a 1. It will be a couple months until I find out if that translates into an easier time reffing games.
At Thanksgiving, I did a college showcase to end my season. I felt really peaceful doing the matches. Had a good weekend. About two weeks later, while traveling I had intense pain (like a 12 on a scale of 1-10). I had my knee replaced in 2007, fought my way back on the field, and 2,000 games later, it had somewhat worn out. The plastic liner had like the heel of a shoe worn on the outside. I had no problems until the overwhelming pain hit. But, like I said my last matches were great. My surgery was yesterday. I got really lucky. My surgeon was able to replace the liner with the 2020 Model, and it should last 3,000 matches. I know I won’t reach that number, but the advances in surgery have been exponential in the last 12 years. I had to stay one night because of my crazy allergies, but I’m home with what feels like a quad strain. I should be back training in 3 weeks. BTW, I got sent home with a walker for 10 days as a precaution. Half tempted to roll it onto the field. But, when the pain hit I really thought I was done. And, those games at Thanksgiving might have been the best I have ever done. So, if the rehab doesn’t work, I went out on a high!
In the last month I have attended both of our state's Advanced recert courses (only one was required, but I helped coordinate the other so wanted to see how the first one went). Both locations were able to get a police officer who was an instructor for de-escalation within their respective jurisdictions. Even for our upper level referees this was a good reminder of the things we already knew, plus helped add a few tricks of the trade for us to use.
Congrats! I'm about 12 pounds behind you but I'm also seeing numbers I can't remember when I previously saw them. Tough work but rewarding.
First game of four Sunday. U9 solo. Next field over with benches back to back, a 15 year old young man is also doing a U9 solo. As I am waiting for the players to straggle onto the field, the youngster blows his whistle to start his match. A red girl then dribbles the ball out of the center circle. He blows his whistle, explains to the girl she can't do that, then awards the other team an IDFK. I'm no music major, but I think red coach's voice went up three octaves and 50 db. "She's just a kid. They have to learn! Give her a do-over!!" He walked over to the coach and said something in a hushed tone and she yelled again. "This is where they learn!" The other coach called the referee over and talked to him quietly, apparently letting him know it was OK with him for the do-over. The young referee relented and allowed the rekick. I wanted to yell "The referee also has to learn! Is yelling at him beneficial to his learning??" But I didn't as my teams were ready to start. Sadly as my game was going on, that coach was joysticking and yelling at her team with the same screeching tone she used on the referee. As the day went on I talked with him and his dad (another referee). The kid seemed well grounded and wasn't rattled by the coach. "Don't be surprised if you see me refereeing on TV in ten years." Go for it, kid. I look forward to that day.
I finished our regular season HS soccer in my area. I think this is the 1st or maybe 2nd time I went a whole regular season without giving a red card to a player. (had many games where other officials gave multiple red cards while I was on the line). I only did 42 matches though, which is about half my normal work load. On my second to last game I got a nice compliment from a player who said "this referee is good. we don't have to worry about that today!" I've also been considering hanging up the whistle. Its been a back and forth I have been going with for the last couple months. Im relatively young too. But not sure if I have hit my ceiling and don't see a reason in pushing forward.
My son and I went to Memphis, TN this weekend for the annual Inter-Regional ODP Showcase at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex. He played in the U12/2008 boys division and played well for his first event of this nature. I was proud of him more than holding his own and playing within himself against very good competition (hoping that growth spurt happens pretty soon - some of those 2008s are getting pretty damn big! ). I figured I would get some U12 and U13 games as the out of town guy that cold-called the assignor asking for a few games around my son's schedule. I ended up centering the kickoff U17 girls game in the complex's stadium on Saturday morning. Had a very fun 2-1 game with the winning goal scored with about 12 minutes left. My two ARs were outstanding, and I felt really good about my performance after only centering two full-field games since the fall season. Following the game, a number of parents came up to our crew and said they wish we could go back to their states to work games. On Saturday afternoon, I had the privilege of working with an upper-level college referee who put on one of the best man-management shows I've seen a center have in a 2-1 U16 boys game. He had those kids in some kind of Jedi mind trance and got through 80 minutes without a card (and honestly, he really never got to a point where one was needed). I took a lot of mental notes. On Sunday, I centered a U14 boys game with a really good Tennessee team winning 4-0. Solid group of players. Because of field conditions, I ran a right diagonal and did well after the normal 15-minute adjustment period of making sure I swung right instead of left. Final game was another AR with my home state's 2004 team putting on a clinic in a 7-0 win. I hope my son gets to continue attending this event. The referees were a great group, and the assignor was gracious in giving me some upper-level games despite no one knowing me and being there as a dad first.