As an aside, even though "Sarah" seems to be the far more popular spelling, why does every *song* with the name seem to be titled "Sara?"
why not Sarah? I’m missing some type of pop culture thing I feel like… I was thinking Siri or Alexa. Lol
From my other life: We had a college long jumper named Budweiser Hawkins III. And when he checked in, it was always "Budweiser," never "Bud." Can you imagine three generations of women who let their husband name their child Budweiser?
For the longest time, there were always girls named “Peyton”. And, from where I am from it was pronounced Pey-in. Never Pey-Tin. And, as we all know, Mary was the 1st or 2nd most popular girls name for just over 80 years from about 1880 until 1961. It is such a rare name now, I don’t think it breaks top 200.
As a teacher, I see different types of names cycle through all the time. When I first started teaching, there were a lot of Emmas and a lot of names that started with K like Kayla, Kennedy, Karri. Now we are in the time where all names end in the ayden sound like Kayden, Brayden, Aedan.
Had a new situation unfold in an adult "elite" amateur league. (read: CRs are either Regionals or were at some point). Attackers are up 2-0 and a careless foul in the middle of their own half right near the center. Player is on ground but not asking for asking. I run up while I hit the whistle for a foul. I make eye contact with the player over the ball. He takes a quick freekick who passes it an onside player and dances around the keeper. No trainer was beckoned. No card was shown. No one asked for ten yards. Just a simple foul and off they went. Last year me would have definitely blown that back but that goal proved to be the game-winning goal. (Ended 3-2)
AR assignment: U14 girls, local rec league -- as I remember all too well from my coaching days in this league, a lot of players are no-shows over Memorial Day weekend. White team starts with maybe 9 players and gets a couple more after the game starts. It's hot, the benches are thin, and the pace is sloooooow. No one is seriously battling for the ball, so I don't think we had a single foul. The coaches and players are the definition of "chill." Red team gets a throw-in on my sideline deep in the attacking half. Player throws it to someone about 10 yards back, then steps on the field and says, "Back to me! Back to me!" Her teammate obliges. The player who threw it in was, of course, about five yards past the second-to-last defender. Up goes my flag. The girl who passed the ball puts her hand to her mouth and says, "Oh no -- I forgot about that!" This game made up somewhat for the U11 boys game I was pulled into this morning -- yanking me away from an AR assignment one field over -- in which parents lost their minds over a throw-in call, claiming the ball didn't cross the line. Then I didn't award a penalty (please -- incidental contact at best), and they wouldn't shut up after that. I wound up handing off the last 7 minutes of that game so I could run back to the other field and start my center assignment, and naturally, I had to exit the field through a gate in the midst of those parents. It's safe to say some words were exchanged. The last game (U13 boys) was competitive and physical, and I gave a yellow card to a player who scored and then faced down the opposing bench and put his finger to his lips to "shush" them. But aside from some plays in which I was either going to annoy one set of parents or the other, it went well. The player who got the yellow later politely inquired about the call on a penalty kick against his team but accepted my explanation without fussing. I made sure to compliment him on that.
Angel Hernandez is retiring from Major League Baseball on Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/dwfVX661VD— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) May 28, 2024
I would say that in his last year or two (besides the UCL Final where everyone loved him), Lahoz was the Hernandez of soccer who was probably the most well-known referee and not always for the best reasons. He got a coat of arms ovation or whatever they call it for his final La Liga game.
Just got home from the last day of mentoring at Iowa's US Club State Cup. Without going into all of the details, here is what we've done in Iowa the last three weeks. Two mentors at Club State Cup group play two weekends both Saturday and Sunday May 25-26. A mentor on site each day at our USYS President's Cup event May 25-26 A mentor on every single Iowa boys and girls state tournament game - 49 matches in total. A number of these matches also had a USSF referee coach observing the mentor's post-match debrief with the crew. One mentor on site yesterday and three today for Club State Cup Championship Weekend. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. I'd still love to see more mentors or "referee buddies" on site at our regular season club events. We also had over 75 high school matches covered with a mentor, but we'd like to increase that to other areas of the state. We're making progress, and hopefully we will still improve what we are doing to build the program.
2 adult solo matches today - Successfully defused a potential mass confrontation situation (allowing physical male players to get too physical with each other) by saying how good of players they are that I want to let them battle a bit with each other and they apologize, shake hands and hug before the restart - Got into loud arguments with a few players whining about offside, take out a flag from my bag and offer it to them, quiet rest of match - Missed a few potential PKs because play transitioned from a CK on one end, blasted out to midfield and run into the opponent's penalty area within 8 seconds so I didn't have a great angle to 100% be certain a foul occurred, loud arguments about the physics of covering 100 yards in 8 seconds - Few players said that even though they don't always agree with my calls, that I'm the best ref in the small league These games are always entertaining to do.
To counter my bad story, I'll add one here. My parents saw me ref, in person, for the first time in ~20 years. I'm pretty sure it was an AYSO game when I was 19.
Some bad, some good. Two men's league games yesterday. It's raining, sometimes more, sometimes less, with occasional ice crystals mixed in, and the wind was quote noticeable. So much wind out of the south on a north-south field, that the team going north in the first half pretty much had their opponents boxed in. First game O-50 2nd division. Just laughably bad. It was about at the point where you'd suggest that they try to pass to the opponents because they were so unlikely to get it to a teammate. I would guess that the completed pass percentage was in the neighborhood of 20%. One caution for a hard charge to the chest/impeding. Cautioned player gave me a thumbs up after I showed the card. Game ended 0-0. But it's still raining and windy. Second game is O-40 3rd division. The thing I hate the most about doing games in the rain is player check-in. The players just want to play, it's not like there are ringers in this division and everyone's card was current. I didn't check one team off against their roster, however. Opps. They want to talk about some decisions. With one referee, yeah, you're going to miss somethings. Like a shot that hit the inside of the left post, ran all of the way to the right post and then out. Attackers, of course, wanted a goal given, defenders didn't think it crossed the line. I went with no goal. It would have been the tying goal. A player goes down after taking a hard pass in the soft tissue regions. I hit the whistle as he's rolling on the ground in agony. His teammate tells it "It was a nut shot." He then says to everybody "Hey, does anybody know CPR?" I snickered and he says with a grin, "You got that one?" "Yeah. Good one." Another guy from the blue team has a collision with an opponent, who shoves him in the chest with both hands. Not angry, just sort of trying to get him out of the way so he could chase the ball. Whistle and point. The vic gets up, indignant. "Ref, that wasn't a foul. He kicked me!" I'm thinking 'what?" I said, "Yeah. It's blue's kick." "But he kicked me!" His teammate finally tells him, "Yeah. It's our kick." Kick is taken and the player does a fly by with me. "Sorry, ref. I just didn't understand," and shakes my hand. All good. I ran 3.8 miles in the game. 1-2 final score. No cards. And I spent maybe 20 minutes in the shower when I got home, just warming up.
My parents have only seen me referee one time. Literally my first day doing games when I was around 14, that was it. I always thought the father-son/daughter (it was always the dad) ref crews would have been cool to experience, never did though.
The first time my wife saw me referee was at a U19B game between two teams of the same club (North v South, same club). The game ended with an orange card foul and a brawl with a bunch of people thrown out and me learning that sometimes it's best not to get between an already-brewing calamity.
The first time my wife saw me ref a "real" game (my daughter came with her to scout a potential HS opponent), I told her, "It's a big stadium, do us both a favor and sit away from everyone else. And, just ignore anything they say about me. I'd rather they chastise me than the players (HSGV)." When I got home later, I heard about how at first, my daughter wanted to go after a few "fans" for their commentary on her dad's refereeing ability and how momma-bear had to reign her in... then in the second half, daughter had to reign in momma-bear from telling some spectators what she thought about their commentary on the Refs... evidently, she was steaming.... "Honey, what part of, 'Sit the heck away from everyone.' did you not understand?"
My wife would sometimes walk to a field where I was reffing, for her exercise. Sometimes she would ride with me to a game and then spend part of the time walking around the park with the field. One time she and my son came. After the game my son let me know that the call that everyone hollered about, yes indeed, I did get that one wrong.
I suppose I should have noted that because I would ref at events my sister was playing at, my parents would frequently see me ref a half or game. My wife doesn't see me much anymore. In Oklahoma I'd work games involving her high school because I was the best locally and she had students on the teams that she would support. The last time she came to a game was 2 years ago. The State Cup assignor emailed begging me to take a U19 boys middle on Sunday morning. "I know you're in town for your 10th anniversary but would you please help me out?" My wife, being the awesome person she is, agreed. She came and met everyone that I told stories about in the ref room then she watched by some of the most entitled sounding parents ever. (Fake English aristocrat voice) "I don't know if [son] will be able to go to Regionals. He's had a two week European vacation booked for months that conflicts." Her favorite was when parents were whining about no-calls and players from the U16 team for the same club turned around and said, "We like how he's calling the game. He isn't calling the small stuff and just letting them play."
The first time my now-wife watched me officiate was in 2006. We were engaged two weeks earlier, and she brought my now-stepson (2 at the time) to the complex for a regional high school final (round of 16, winner to the state tournament) between two heated local rivals. I recommended that she stay on the field on the hill overlooking the game field, as I knew every call would have 50% of the crowd getting pretty upset. She left at halftime and told me after the game she couldn’t believe I’d willingly subject myself to that. First time my parents watched me officiate was when I was pressed into service for my son’s U12 game when a scheduled AR didn’t show up. I ran the line in front of them and had to signal a goal on a ball just over the line in the air that the keeper clawed out after crossing the line. Had the flag up and the big sprint up the touch line. Before starting the 2nd half, my dad looked at me and said “Had to sell that one, right?” He didn’t understand anything about soccer, but he knows enough about sports to know an official needs to sell a big call.
I can't recall any time that my wife watched me referee. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law watched our older daughter do a college or pro game in the city where they live. My wife and I went to Germany to watch the daughter do a World Cup game. Wednesday through Saturday of this week, my wife, our younger daughter and our son are doing the NCAA D1 national track & field championships together. IIRC, this will be my 10th time and my wife and son's fourth or fifth time. I think my daughter has done one more than them.