Well, it will be the ref’s fault if it doesn’t! I have seen arrangements where the game is to end and 8:55, even if it started late, which sounds like it would be essential with that kind of tight time frame.
First year of tournament I assign they left five minutes between games and no allowance for halftime. I told them we are going with one minute halftimes and using an air horn to start/stop games since sunlight was going to be an issue if we did not start the last game on time. 12 years later we are still using the air horn.
There are lights at this complex. And cold. Very cold. 36 to start the 8:00am games, 46 to start the 7:00pm games. The high is 51. If it gets any colder, I'm moving South-er.
I have worked in this tournament. As a ref, it is great having the horn. No need to worry about keeping track and the teams quickly learn to hustle on and off. Only issue is when once or twice, mvgary forgot to blow the horn.............
My home club just hosted the District Championships. U11 through U15 and generally the top teams and of course, the Alpha dog coaches. I was the ref assignor and a de-facto field marshal. Due to the ref shortage, I did not have enough top quality refs in my crew to cover these games. So I reached out to the other clubs assignors in the district to recommend some good refs. It was very unnerving to assign refs I had never seen to a Final. Some of them were pretty good. And one or two were not. I have a general comment that I tell coaches and parents all the time. I tell them that "when you have a game with a bad ref, you know what you can do about it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!" If it's a safety issue, pull your team off the field. Otherwise, suck it up and send me an email. I had 2 or 3 coaches get loud about calls and I was right there immediately with the "coach, we're not doing that today". "yeah, but that was offside". "I don't care, leave the refs alone." "but but but sputter sputter". It's actually a bit funny as they probably know they are under the microscope, maybe for the first time ever, and don't really know how to handle it. And I'm not a15 yr old. I'm not a big guy, and most of these gruff coaches are, but I have the Authoritay (of the clipboard) I totally agree with the earlier comment that refs should not have to deal with off the field stuff and someone else should handle it. I was happy to do it. The problem, of course, is the other 99% of the games that don't have this level of attention on them.
I officially retired in October 2019, my final game being a D1 Women's College match. I was a referee for 21 years. I wore a State Badge with the USSF for 5 of those years, NISOA for 7, and NFHS for 10. I've been us USYS Regionals as a a referee 4 times, have worn the shiny blue college playoff badge, and have refereed HS state playoffs. Even did some NPSL along the way. All that to say, I put together a career I am proud of. I have found myself missing it somewhat, but threads like this remind me of why I left. My high school referee career ended in such a way as to remind me why I left as well. I was in the center for a late stage GV playoff game. Winner goes to state, loser goes home. First problem was the teams moved the game from noon to 2 pm and didn't bother to tell the assignor. So we show up at 11, per state guidelines for playoffs, and end up being there until almost 4 pm. For 80 bucks for me in the middle, 60 for my ARs. Already not a great start. Anyway, with 8 minutes remaining, the visitors are pressing the attack, and a home team defender tries to shoulder the attacker off the ball, but fails and falls, wanting a foul. Nope. Attacker goes on and scores the game winning goal. I was 10 yards from the play with a great angle, but the home coach disagreed from 50 yards away, and continued her disagreement to a yellow card. I get it. She was upset. But the call wasn't changing. She continued after the game, and I chose to just walk away. Had the story ended there, I'd be fine. It didn't. That night she sent me an email continuing her dissent. The next day she called my cell phone to carry on some more. (She got both from the Arbiter Sports system.) I reported her to the assignor and the state, but they didn't seem to think calling me the next day to argue a call was a big enough deal. Even though a football referee had been assaulted at his home following a game. I decided if that's how the state wanted to do it, I didn't need to stick around. This is how and why we lose good referees. I'm not taking time from my family, for less hourly than my day job, to put up with a potential doxxing situation and harassment. No thanks.
I am sorry to hear that. I hope the coach will know she contributed to the loss of yet another experienced official because of one call she didn't like, but somehow I don't think she will care if that's her attitude.
There is a school that I have now blocked because of how they treat referees...coaches, AD, spectators. We use DragonFly. The first time I refereed there, they handed me their roster...with the names, email addresses and phone numbers of all three referees on it. They have never contacted me directly, but I was very uncomfortable seeing that information on there.
I was once an AR, in front of the visiting team's bench, for a last game of the regular season game. Visitors had beaten the home team 13-0 earlier in the season. It's 0-0 in the second half and the referee has just sent off the second visiting team player for SFP, studs into the Achilles from behind. The visiting team's coach explodes to me, "What's that stupid f...kers name!!!!!" He got to leave, walking slowly across the field to the parking lot. He was not able to coach his team in their first round playoff game, which they lost, to a lower seeded team. Any demand for my name gets a response of "The assignor knows the names." I don't mention that the assignor doesn't want to hear from a coach. Chain of command. The AD is the one who should contact the assignor. If an angry coach were to call me after the game, besides my contacting the assignor and the state high school association, I would also call the police about filing a harassment complaint. I don't have to use Arbiter for soccer, fortunately, but I would hope that they have privacy settings that would allow your contact information to only be available to appropriate people like your assignor and crew members. I would be surprised if this has not come up in some other sport that uses Arbiter.
Joining water polo this year is the first time I have ever used Arbiter. On one of the first games I did, my ego-driven more experienced partner (who I know from soccer) had a confrontation with the home coach which caused the game to kind of go off the rails. The next day the home coach called me and left a message telling me that I handled the situation well, how it wasn't my fault, etc. I wanted to know how the hell he got my phone number and that's when I learned that Arbiter broadcasts the names, emails and phone numbers of all people associated with games; refs, assignors, coaches, school athletic directors, and apparently everyone can see everyone else's info. I don't understand how this is allowed. Is this the default, unmodifiable setting for Arbiter in all sports that everyone can see everyone's info? Because if so, it's BS. The referee assignors and school coaches/administrators should be the only people able to contact each other. Oh and also, I noticed that some fellow referees have their home address broadcasted when I click their name to get their phone number. It's horrible that this is even an option. I bet these refs don't even know it's out there.
Back when I used it, we had to have those pieces of information, so the schools could mail us checks. Unfortunately, the coaches often were able to get that info.
Honestly, if that would have happened to me my first call after hanging up on her would have been to the police. I would have told her that I was doing that as well and to expect a call from them as you had her number in your recent calls. Last year around this time, I had a situation where a parent tried to engage with me as I was walking to my car with my son (we were the ARs for the game, so I wasn't even the center). When I started to get his license plate number, he got out of his car to approach me. My wife ended up stepping up to him and telling him (and I'm pretty much quoting direct here) to "get the f*** back to your car." I didn't get his license number, and I waited 24 hours before calling the police. In hindsight, I should have done both right away and seen if the police had enough for an assault (remembering that assault only deals with threatening conduct and doesn't have to involve actual physical contact. It would have served the guy right if he would have had to drive 3 hours back to our town to face a misdemeanor.
Here's how my Thursday went: Got an email Tuesday night for a 7 pm Thursday game (this is all through gameofficials). BV center, I checked and saw the school had a doubleheader with the girls playing first. So I figure it's probably a dual for the girls and then those two refs will be my ARs for the boys' game. Got an email yesterday morning for a 5 pm/7 pm doubleheader at a different location. Does my assignor want me to go there instead? Hmm, the game I already have is in a more convenient location. Turn down those two games. Last night I get an email to be AR on a 3:30 game. I'm off work early, it's a convenient location, I can work that game, grab a quick bite to eat, then head over to my 7 pm. I accept. I wake up this morning to more emails. One is for a 5:30 game nowhere close to the other two games (we're talking at least a 40 minute drive with no traffic, and probably at least 1 hour at that time of day). Fortunately I think my assignor realized that was impossible and by the time I log into gameofficials that game was already gone. Then I get a call from my assignor around noon. I call him back, he says he needed someone to cover another game but realized I already had two games. I checked my 3:30 game before I left and the other AR was still TBD. So I figure we're probably going to have a dual on a lousy field with a boys game that could be reasonably competitive. Thankfully I had a good partner, both teams played fairly clean, home team won by 2. (Oh, and my dual partner had to race over to a 5pm game about 15 minutes away.) As I leave that game I get a text from one of the other guys on the 7 pm game. He says he's coming from work and might be a few minutes late for that game. I ask him if he was also on the girls game. He says no. I think, "Hmm, that's a little strange," but maybe the assignor had a reason for that. I grab dinner, then head over to my next game and get there a few minutes before 6. The girls teams are out there playing with the coaches of the boys teams acting as refs. Apparently there was a mix-up and the assignor didn't see the girls' game on the schedule. They had played about 20 minutes. I go talk to the girls' coaches, they agree to start up a game (shortened to 30-minute halves) with me working solo, wiping out whatever had happened before I got there. We finish a little after 7, the other two refs are there, and I talk one of them into taking over the CR spot for me. It was a very interesting night, but at least I'm $250 richer.
I don't know. All I know is the roster that was handed to us by the home team had our names, email addresses and telephone numbers on there.
In Arbiter the schools generally have our name and address on the sheet we sign for payment purposes so I'm used to it.
We have been using Zebraweb for three years now, and they have Zebra-pay attached to it. Sign a form get paid. No addresses. Yeah, I know its banking on the internet, but it’s 2022, and I’m okay with it.
I’m currently in St. Louis at an ECNL event where my son is playing and I’m officiating a few matches. These signs are all over the place. Since this is more of a showcase event, not much heard from parents and coaches. In other words, I have no idea if these actually make people think twice when they see these everywhere at the two complexes where I’ve been this weekend.
Just got this email from our new SRA (Alabama) “This brings us to a total of 421 referees registered for 2023 while in 2022 we had a total of 712 certified officials. We are missing 291 referees that have not certified yet for 2023.”
Hell yeah maybe I'll fly out there. I can try reffing a tournament like Lahoz and then if they hate me for it I never see them again anyway