This is how I got started. I played AYSO from kindergarten through HS (I played the first season that it was available in town). I foresaw that I would be cut from my HS sophamore team and wanted to stay in soccer, so I certified to ref in 2000. Many years later I recertified with USSF to fund my last year of college and here we are with 13 years of experience of USSF, current mentor, previous assignor, and trying to upgrade to national.
It feels good to feel like I’m part of a solution. Our officiating association is investing to have paid mentors/coaches at 75 high school games this spring in the Des Moines area. I am coaching a referee we are hoping to work more varsity matches as he whistles a preseason scrimmage tonight. Even veterans are supposed to be mentored once during the season.
We had a big local tournament this weekend. Quite a few new faces out there, including about 8-10 teenagers who I think are new to refereeing within the last year or so. And out of those teenagers, it was about a 50/50 male-female split. Of course, I had 12 games in three days, so I'd say there's still a shortage. (At least most of my games were on small fields. I feel a lot better than when I worked the same tournament three years ago and 11 of my 12 games were on full-sized fields.)
What is the usual there? Here, if we get less than 4 games a day at a tournament, most refs are upset that they got so little; often we get 6 games a day.
In my opinion, 6 is way too much. Four is probably the max we can do and not be wiped out physically and mentally. I personally try to limit myself to three (1 center, 2 lines) per day. I get these are tournaments with shorter games and maybe less pay per game, but I still don’t want to be one step above a zombie in terms of mental ability.
A tournament here this weekend, rescheduled from February. 30 7v7 games Saturday, 20 9v9s and only eight 11v11s. Ten referees have five games, 15 have four or fewer. Four referees emailed me after I sent out the schedule saying they prefer to do more than they got and "no 7v7s."
Starting in the fall, we will be getting paid $46 for a 7v7 and $50 for a 9v9. I am happy to do 6-7 7v7s all day.
Soccer isn’t too mentally taxing a sport to referee even doing a bunch of games, even intense ones. If you guys want to try refereeing a physically easy but extremely mentally taxing sport try water polo. I could do 4-6 soccer games in a day no problem. After 3-4 water polo matches I was exhausted. Just be like me and have your default mental ability be one step above a zombie. Then if you stray that low people think you’re at the top of your game.
The referee in me says "no more than 3 a day and not all back to back". The assignor in me says "do what you have to do. 6 games with one or 2 breaks it is." And I hate it because after 4 games a day in 90 plus degree weather no one is making good decisions. If you think you are you are delusional.
Most people who are available all day end up with a bunch of games, but by the time 3:00 or 4:00 comes around Sunday afternoon, most people are ready to get out. The most common complaint is probably having a game off early in the day—you’d much rather be working than sitting if you aren’t tired or hungry yet. A couple of years ago it was absolutely brutal when they were trying to run the games in 75-minute windows, even though some of the games were 70 minutes plus a five minute halftime. I think the assignor finally convinced the club that was a bad idea, and now we have a little more downtime in between consecutive games (90 or 105 minutes). We also don’t have a lot of out of towners come in for tournaments, so it’s not like people are looking to make up their expenses. I got an email yesterday for a tournament this coming weekend three hours away, and I thought about going, but even with a free hotel room I’d need to do a ton of games to make up for the time of travel and gas.
If you can't remember whether this is the first half or the second half, you are doing too many games.
When I was a teenager, the league I refereed for decided to get all teams the same reversible blue and red shirts. With that it was easy to get lost by the second game of the day . . .
You find water polo games more taxing because you don’t know the game. You really have to focus the whole time. I really doubt you are giving your fourth game the same level of attention as your first game, unless you are phoning them all in. Given your descriptions of your games I don’t think that’s the case.
This is great! How did the association get the money to pay for this coaching (charge the schools, referees pay, etc...), and how much are the coaches getting?
Yep...that reminds me of being a kid and every player on every team having one black shirt and one white shirt. Home team picked. The visiting team got to wear the other. Inevitably, there was always a kid who didn't bring one of the jerseys. No problem, borrow from the other team. Looking back...solved a lot of issues.
The lack of knowledge about the sport is true but there is way more stuff, and more difficult stuff, to have to look for in water polo, as well as the compact area you’re working in vs. a large soccer field. Soccer is probably one of the easiest sports to referee. Not saying it’s easy, but relative to other sports it is. My fellow water polo refs who also do soccer agree about water polo being more taxing. As for the level of attention thing, because soccer is generally less mentally taxing most of the issues will come from fitness, and I don’t usually get physically tired during or after games. I’m sure there is a decrease in performance but it isn’t like I’m physically or mentally struggling on the third or fourth game. The only time I got physically tired was when I made the genius attempt to run up and down the touch line in the solo rec adult league I do to focus more on offside and try to get to the 2LD line. That was asinine
ha! I did a college spring thingy last year. Three games in a row, A vs B. B vs C. A vs C. All done as duels. At halftime of game #3, I stripped off my (soaking wet) shirt, put on a t-shirt, went to the head. I came back and realized that my partner wasn't getting ready to go home. Oh, crap, it's only halftime of the last game. I've got another half to go! Quick, put my (soaking wet) shirt back on and get out there. I can't imagine I was making super decisions in that last half.
Man I'm getting triggered by these posts Ain't gonna spend the time further derailing this thread other than volunteering that I personally have a very difficult time performing well over the course of one 90 minute match of soccer. I am mentally and emotionally exhausted after the matches I referee, and I'm physically pretty dang tired too. As for multiple games in a day...I struggle to keep heightened levels of focus and awareness for a doubleheader, much less three matches or more over the course of the day. I try to avoid working multiple games in a day for this reason (unless they're low level). We really need more referees so people aren't feeling obligated to work past the point of exhaustion.
Last year I had a JV Boys, Varsity girls and varsity boys tripleheader. This year I had a middle school girls, middle school boys and Varsity boys tripleheader. With the hardest game last was miserable.
I’m not trying to act like I’m some superhuman guy who doesn’t experience fatigue or anything like that. But at least at the youth level, most people take sets of games. HS, Even ECNL or MLS next, games are usually assigned in groups of 2 or 3 back to back. Adult games are usually standalone. Most people in youth games seem to do multiple ones so maybe you guys are just taking about adult amateur level ones. From a physical standpoint I think my endurance is helped by a decent amount of bicycling I do. I bicycle to fields regularly and then go into a game. In fact a problem of mine is sometimes running too much being too close to play so I need to work on laying back. Also AR makes me more physically tired than CR with the back and forth. Mentally I really think my unorthodox method of talking out loud through a lot of my decisions during play has helped take mental stress off of myself. I’m not making calls/no calls and then just internalizing it. Something potentially happens, I immediately give people a reason why, dissent gets relatively tempered, and I’m not dealing with that stress as much. This is why I like Lahoz so much because I heard about this ref who talks all the time and liked seeing my type of way actually worked at the pro level somewhat and isn’t just complete incompetence on my part. I saw casemiro and xavi interviewed who actually said they like Lahoz specifically because he talks things out to people Also overall you should all probably just understand that you are all most likely better referees than I am.
Some leagues and competitions (ex EDP) have increased their fees considerably this year. Will that help them get more and better referees when in the past, the "local" referee rate would apply (as per ROC) which would almost always be higher? I am intrigued that in my neck of the woods, the CR fee is now $110 (I believe it was $90 before), while in Florida it's only $70, with AR fees at a paltry $35. Since it seems to be based on cost-of-living in each state and apparently supply/demand, I've been to Miami where the prices there make anything in Manhattan look affordable (yes, it's cheaper to live in other parts of the state): https://www.edpsoccer.com/referee-fees
Someday, have the pleasure (sic) of doing the triple as Varsity, followed by JV, followed by Freshmen. The game keeps getting slower and slower, and it's actually harder to focus. That said, I've certainly had brain farts at the end of the Varsity/third game of a triple. You're sure, at the time, of what you saw, and then see the film and realize you completely blew it.
Because Florida is such a wonderful place, doing their part to reverse the ref shortage. https://www.clickorlando.com/news/l...sed-of-punching-referee-at-youth-soccer-game/