As of lunchtime today, my now 13-year-old son has completed all of his educational work to become a certified USSF referee. He's worked a few events in the past two months to give him some game experience with either the manager of referees for his state or me on the sidelines, but now he can move forward fully certified. He and I work a 4v4 event in the area this weekend, and he's already picked up a championship game. Of course, this is a pre-season, intrasquad event where only one club is playing, and it's U-very littles. But it'll still be a fun event for him.
What association! I wasn't paid anything in those days, so I wasn't joining any organization - which probably didn't exist in those days. I didn't mind not getting paid. My kid's registration was $10 and included a uniform - which got turned back end at the end of the season. My Over the Hill games were friendlies without a referee. Life was good and simple! Soccer was definitely recreational - but fun!
I didn't have to join an association, as the reffing was driven by the league. (Police Athletic League.) I think I got $3/game for U8 duals when I started. But that was pretty cool for being 11 back then!
Not really the best story, but one extremely large annual tournament in my area announced that they will be doing U13-U19 in the fall and U9-U12 in the spring. This will definitely make for a better-organized tournament. In other news, I have yet to referee a USSF game in 2021. I refereed one private HS girls game in the spring, but between college and my fast-food job, I have very little time to devote to refereeing .
Starting fall today with four 7v7 games with no break and a high of 90. Sunday will be better. Also four games, all 11v11. BUT...
Refereeing U19 boys final tournament match. Very very good teams, one was NPL, the other is NPL with 4-5 MLS Next players on it. On these levels of match, I usually try to call it tighter the first 10 minutes or so because I've seen far too often that calling it loose early can cause you to lose control quickly. I then gradually loosen as we go if things are staying calm. First 10 minutes: "OMG ref will you let us play, come on, stop with the soft stuff". It wasn't like U12 contact calls, just stuff in back etc. Next 20-30 minutes (40 min half): Still calling fouls but start letting contact go to let game flow better.: "WTF REF", arms thrown up in air all the time, etc. Even hear a coach "hey ref you're gonna lose control of the game if you don't start calling stuff" Second half: Every foul I call, just endless complaining about how I'm not letting anything go. Then when i do let things go, they cry for calls. End of game: Both teams come to me, "hey ref great game out there you did a good job" You can never win
"As I listened to the referees argue amongst themselves about whether or not this was a penalty, I realized the referee is a tragic figure. They're the only person on the field who can't win." https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgzv5v/behind-the-scenes-of-mlss-efforts-to-improve-officiating
Blows my mind how referees all over, up to FIFA/national level, PRO, VAR, all the Euro ref organizations, etc. can look at a video clip of a situation and even with the benefit of camera angles, slow motion, snapshots of incidents, etc., you can still get differing opinions on what the correct call should have been.
Also, this U19 experience highly contrasted with my experience yesterday, where I was doing mostly youngers U11-U12 level (which I never do but there was a local league's tournament that needed help) and all I got all day was parents telling me how good of a ref I was and (when I was AR1) coaches asking where my crew and I have been and why can't we get all their games. Awkward conversation of "well, the best refs aren't going to be doing U11 games, so you have the newer refs who are learning just like your players" where I basically tell them that they deserve poor refereeing. Whoops.
I don't know if getting your assignor certification is the "best" story of the week. It is a pretty thankless job.
Is there a shortage or soon to be shortage where you are? I'm considering it because when our USSF assignor moved to Colorado, our new one lives two hours away. He is very good and I hope he stays. But another that lives close by who says he will take the test is not as organized. Not even close.
I once, sort of accidentally, attended a NISOA assessors recert class. (I was a NISOA assessor but I wasn't high enough on the totem pole to need to attend this class.) So everybody else in the class was a national NISOA assessor, the big names that you read about in all of their newsletters as having received another award, etc. We did a critical incidents clip and everybody had to write down "no foul, foul, foul caution, foul send off." Then there was a show of hands. Okay, I can accept that there will be some disagreement, but, on virtually every clip, the range was three! In other words, there were votes for ordinary foul and foul send off, or no foul to foul caution. So consider that when an assessor tells you that incident absolutely should have been a caution. He might be right but then other assessors will disagree with him.
That would work. My oldest is a stickler for the rules, so I think he will make a good ref. I hope to be able to ref with at least one of my kids, but that is still 10 years away.
I have had the same experience in general webinars/classroom sessions with other referees, the same "choose which you think it is" game. This is also why I have had major imposter syndrome for my entire refereeing career. I basically come out of every game that's of any decent level not knowing if I actually did well or not because of how subjective everything is. I could do a game that no one complains about, but maybe I actually didn't do it well. Maybe I do a game where there is quite a bit of complaining, but I actually officiated it well and the players/coaches just didn't like that I was calling a lot of fouls or letting stuff go but everything I did was correct. Hell, like you said, I could even get an assessment and the assessor could fail me on missing a KMI but maybe another assessor would think I called it correctly?