The things we hear is back - 2021,22 and more edition

U14 girls rec. Very laid-back game with players laughing and joking.

One girl kept up constant commentary throughout the game -- first half in goal, second half in the field -- and a lot of it was hilarious. Two highlights:

"If I can scream at 120 decibels, they're done for."

"Don't protect your face! It's not worth it!"

Later, she said she was worried about losing her voice before a dinner party.

"Your voice gives out at some point?" I asked.

"Well ... sometimes."

Nice change of pace from the cranky U19 boys rec game that preceded it, in which I whistled for a bunch of clumsy challenges and still had kids whining to me every time someone legally won the ball.

 

File this under ‘I shit you not’

Sectional QF, #11 just committed his sixth foul. I pull out a yellow card. Few moments later, I’m back on the sideline by their team bench. Assistant coach says to me “you can’t give a card for too many fouls”. I was dumbfounded for a moment before I replied that’s the very definition of persistent infringement

 

Based on the game I AR'd last night, every ball that hit a girl in the chest as a "clear handball" and "why isn't the ref calling any of those, does he even know what handball is!?"

 

Those parents must get really upset when a boy wants to "hold hands" with their daughter.

 

Note to self, do not fist-bump those parents

 

I'd like to point out that this wasn't from the parents...

but from the one team's bench.

 

Saturday night, NCAA D3 Men's, basically two teams fighting for the last spot in the conference playoffs. HANDBALL! HANDBALL! HANDBALL! HANDBALL! HANDBALL! every time it even came near an arm/hand/chest.

I finally did my best Fezzik reset: "I don't tink dis word means what dey tink it means."

No reaction from the ~20 year olds. What is this world coming to!!1!

 

I caught my coin in mid-air when I realized home captain had "confirmed" the wrong call by the away captain just before/as I flipped the coin.

Explained we'd be doing the toss over, since we didn't want to have a Jerome Bettis moment.

After the kids walked away my partner laughed and said "There's no way those kids know what you're talking about."

Sigh.

 

I'm still waiting for an appropriate moment to say "I've been married for almost 50 years, so I'm an expert. Those aren't hands." I suspect that moment will never come. Maybe in an adult co-ed game.

 

Um ... no.

 

This past weekend, I was AR1 for a D3 women’s game. Visitors were clearly the better team outshooting the home team 2 to 1. However, they couldn’t put the ball in the net. As the teams come off the field as we are getting ready for overtime, I start hearing the visiting players complaining about the call. It’s typical stuff “How many handballs are they going to allow?” “Why didn’t they call that?” Etc.

Then the visiting coach tells them to stop. He said, “We got double the shots, and you can’t score. You’ve all lost the right to complain since you can’t score!”

 

AR2 for men's college match with the spectator seating about 5 yards behind me. Flag goes straight up for close out of bounds, and shortly after a college girl yells "GREAT CALL REF......... and I like your beard too!!!" Shared a giggle and a blush, n then on we go. I love college soccer

 

I once told my U-8s to be cool like Fonzie.

It quickly occurred to me that they didn't even know Happy Days, let alone Pulp Fiction.

I wound up having to explain that Fozzie was not the frog on the Muppets.

 

Good thing you were in like Flynn.

 

This intergenerational lack of common ground sounds like a case for Fargo North, Decoder.

 

Hey you guy-y-y-y-s!

 

Family Guy had fun with that

 

District play-off game, high school girls. Blue is down by a goal. I am the wing referee on the benches side. White goalkeeper needs her shoes tied. Official currently in the middle stops the clock. Blue coach starts questioning why are we stopping the clock and tries to go on and argue. When we stopped it... so his team has more time.

The guy is a total jerk the whole game. Eventually, late on, when it is 2-0, his team gets a free kick, about 30 yards away, white player stands 5 yards away and jumps, unsucessfuly trying to block the kick. His team score. He argues and argues and argues that "you are supposed to stop the clock and give a yellow, it is an automatic yellow!" the referee on the benches side at the time tries to reason with him, to no avail. He tells him "you scored, you want me to stop you from scoring to give them a yellow?" "but she tried to stop the kick!" "but she didn't stop it and you scored, let's get on with it". He won't shut up, keeps yelling. Gets a second yellow.

Ultimately the coach complained the most when his team was getting the advantage. I just... don't understand.

The game ended with two yellows for coaches and a red. No players got booked.

It was a miserable day. The game was supposed to be played yesterday, but 15 minutes before KO we had a thunderstorm and the clouds would not leave and ended up postponing it. It was played today, in heavy (at times) rain and windy conditions.

I have my last college game of the year tomorrow, a couple of amateur games in two weeks on a Sunday and maybe another HS play-off game or two, but probably no more than that.

I am totally ready for a break at this point.

 

I had a chat with my brother who coaches and teaches.
He said the sense of entitlement from players and parents is unfathomable.

hes under the impression that during everyone’s time with sheltering in place it caused those to reorient. Things like personal space, structure, rule-following he is struggling with in the classroom and practice field.

He gave me the example they had 3 kids quit in one week (Bc it was too much for them to handle) and two in-team fights in one month.

on top of 6 fights in one school week with the general population. There is an identity crisis amongst student-athletes and players. And it’s translating to frustration with adults and players.

 

BV playoff game. Black team up 3-0 with about 10 minutes to play. I've been seeing subtle time wasting like having a second player call to take every throw-in. So when I called a foul on white, black had 5 players huddle over the ball to decide how to take the kick. After a long wait 2 players leave and the other three move slowly to positions around the ball. At this point I told them to get moving. They just stood there for about 5 seconds so I stopped play and carded the player nearest the ball for delay. One of his teammates told me " You have to give us 10 seconds". I told him when he showed me that rule, I'd be happy to give 10 seconds. Where do they get these ideas?

 

Monday was the 50th anniversary of the Electric Company debuting on PBS.

 

You are now my son. Anything in life that I say to him, 15 minutes later a related Family Guy clip is texted to me...and I laugh my ass off.