Best Story of the WEEK 2021

Following our move, my son made one of the larger clubs in the Des Moines area at U14. They had a hastily-arranged scrimmage with a local U16 girls team Saturday night, so his coach asked me if I wanted to ref the scrimmage. First game I had refereed that wasn't U9 girls (I stepped in for a game in his four-game block in early June) since Memorial Day weekend, and it felt good to be on the field working a game again. Definitely need to work on my fitness again after making it through all of the move items!

It was also my first chance to try out RefSix on my Garmin. It was actually a lot easier to use than I expected, so I'm going to keep trying it out on some more games before the season starts. I'll probably never fully go away from a traditional written method, but I do like having match data available after the game along with all of the heat maps and running stats RefSix provides!

 

Elfsborg vs. Milsami, Europa Conference League 2nd qualifying round 1st leg.

Elfsborg 18 fouls, three yellows. Milsami 10 fouls, five yellows, three reds. '65, '73 & '75. The 2nd leg might be interesting.

 

MBB teammate asked me today about next entry level course, he and his son both want to sign up.

 

Do they want to do HS ….in NJ….on October 5th? I’ll fly them in. I have 72 games that day. I have roughly 90 refs.

 

How many sites?

 

Everybody here doing NFHS is going to be be slammed just like you. We've picked up several schools from an adjoining chapter worse off than we are and attrition is, well, a thing for all of us.

Godspeed.

 

So, is that a no?

 

Roughly 55.

 

No problem. 55 sites and 90 referees makes 35 duals and 20 solos. You got this!

Seriously I feel your pain. We went through the same thing Jan-Mar. We had to make calls the day before games to tell teams we had no referees at all. We tried to rotate around the pain so that eventually most everyone got that call.

 

Can't imagine what you and my assignors have to try to figure out.

Looking at my HS assignments for this fall, I have a Sat with three of us rotating cr-ar1-ar2 on three HS games at one site across 7 hrs. I was going to ask my assignor wtf, but then I looked at the rest of the schedule for that day and figured we weren't getting off too bad.

 

Due to a mess with Arbiter, we currently have 10 referees in the entire state registered for the fall high school season. We will have over 4,000 games during the season. Ora pro nobis.

 

♫If everyone lit just one little candle.

 

Get in shape.

what color Mercedes are you thinking of buying?

 

NEW ZOOM EVENT: Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 7:30 PM
Foul Recognition and FIFA Considerations
A virtual clinic instructed by:
George Vergara, State Referee Administrator
Chuck Watts, State Director of Assessments & Referee Coaches
Mort Sajadian, National Referee Coach & Assignor
Send an email to mdcvasrp@erols.com to receive an invitation to this Zoom session. Link to discussion documents on SRP Website https://www.vadcsoccerref.com

 

I'll be out that way for one day in mid September, should I pick up a couple hundred games?

 

“Fred, you have Corvalis tomorrow.”
“The HS?”
“The city.”

 

Two L's in Corvallis. (No, not a Beaver.)

But it is more on point that you could have imagined. The IT guy for the state high school organization is also a soccer referee in the association that serves Corvallis.

 

I'm down near the Mexican border...would I get per diem?

 

Didn't work through COVID, and popped my clavicle three months ago, but I came back in time for the local summer soccer league and ended up getting dragged all the way to tonight's Men's championship final on the line thanks to the best referee I've had a chance to work with. The game was largely controversy-free with the heavy underdogs winning 1-0. I got an easy chance to look like a decent lino towards the end of the match when the trailing team had chipped the keeper along with all the defenders, but an attacker in an offside position 2 yards from the goal line tried to steal the goal. My first NISOA patch is on the way as well, so hopefully, that'll be a chance to continue growing since USSF advancement feels mostly unviable in my area. Last, I want to send love to @Law5; as far as I can tell via the internet, you're an awesome dude and I want to thank you publicly for all the help.

 

Congrats Sam C!!!

 

Got my 2nd USL-Academy game of the season (AR1)... of the 5 available games all season in Alabama.

This national assignor must really like me.

 

We had our state high school commissioners [assignors] meeting last night, on Zoom. The newest commissioner said something about how long he'd been a referee and that was half of his life. Doing quick math, we all determined that he is 30 years old. This resulted in another commissioner reporting that he has now been a referee for 50 years. "So he's been a referee longer than you've been........."

 

Eek!! That made me think . . . my first was only 44 years ago. (But I took 20 years off between games once . . . )

 

Sounds about right....the Asso. dues was $15.