They were refs that ranged from 1-4 years of experience. We used Zoom (we'd tried using Teams and WebEx previously). There's even a setting to optimize videos so that they actually run decently and not super choppy and hard to view. Those aspiring to take a course and become are outside of my purview, but I'm hearing that they are looking to move to an online delivery system for all of the non-practical work here in Canada. I'm not sure exactly what the delivery system will be as yet, nor how successful, but we'll see how that plays out.
This was nice to receive in the mail today! Unfortunately I was supposed to be watched at a tournament for ECSR in early April. That tournament has been moved to a weekend in late June and a weekend in late July, which I doubt will happen at all.
was one of the prize winners for the nisoa stimulus fund quizzes for week 2! 150 dollar prize 6 more weeks of quizzes.even though I can't win again, I know the quizzes are a great way to keep my brain sharp.
in case anyone is interested Brought to you by the NEP Join us as the USOfficials Referee Academy hosts Kim Oberle, former FIFA Assistant Referee current US Soccer National Referee Coach at our Thursday Online Seminar Series. Kim will be discussing offside considerations, drawing on over two decades of officiating experience including both men's and women's professional games here in the US and 26 international appointments. Kim is currently one of US Soccer's top Referee Coaches, working closely with referees at high-level events like the Nike Friendlies and most recently was selected to attend the UEFA Course for Referee Technical Instructors that was held in Vienna, Austria last February. Registration is required: https://usoref-kimoberle1.eventbrite.com
I was doing some cleaning because what else I am supposed to do. During the cleaning, I came across a container that had a number of my old referee badges in it. Obviously, I am missing some, but here is a sample of the badges that I have worn over the years.
I have thrown away my old badges. I believe that my first badge (probably about 1979) did not have any date on it.
Wouldn't that be from the United States Soccer Football Association days? There was also a time when a State Referee just got a rocker to go under the badge that said "State."
I remember the State rocker. I thought I should be eligible for one, but I had no idea what the requirements were. I remained an 8 until they changed the name!
I was told that, in those days, you became a State Referee by getting a higher than simply passing test score. Apparently there were no assessments and no actual game experience required. It was a different time. I only knew one guy around here who had the State rocker.
We have one referee that used to wear a 1981(?) rocker on his shorts from when he first got certified.
I had a referee once for a Middle school game try to get both teams to circle up around the center circle and “conduct” team meetings. As he tried doing this I told him I’m walking if he does this which ensued with a slight argument. He was easily 3x my age. And let me know he had “more experience than when I have been alive” *eyes roll*. He may have had one of those badges.
Maybe he was used to doing games at small Christian colleges. If both teams are, at least in the conference around here, they will all stand around the center circle, holding hands and praying. Then they go out and kick the stuffings out of each other.
Until about 4 years ago, that was the standard practice in my area for high school soccer. You would line the teams up in the center circle, quickly check their cleats & shin guards, read a sportsmanship speech, and conduct a coin toss. Some people (like me) did it all quickly while others took forever. I had a partner in a dual system who took TEN minutes to conduct the meeting. I lost interest so I can't imagine what the kids were thinking!
Yikes. Gives me flashbacks to when I played as a kid, and reffed in the same league. The norm was to do inspections at the center circle with both teams. And to give a brief (and sometimes not so brief...) lecture on what was expected. As I did it for a while I realized those lectures were a total waste of time--with a possible exception for the younger kids in the first game or two of the season.
That's how you can tell they're Christian colleges. Else they'd kick some other s-word out of each other.
My "speeches" got shorter and shorter. For U14's and some U12's, it was more like: "Everyone has correct equipment? Shinguards on, jewelry off? Good - any questions?" A coach said, "That was short and sweet." Me: "They probably wouldn't listen anyway." Coach: "Yeah." The younger ages, you have to watch asking for "any questions". One cute darling asked me what my favorite color was. So I grabbed my shirt: "Yellow!"
The SDI and I were doing a clinic in a far flung part of the state. One local notable was saying that he told the captains before the game "how (he) was going to call the game." The SDI politely and respectfully suggested, "Well, you might not want to do that...." "No, they need to hear that." A young woman in the class, a high school senior who was going to be playing the next year for the local college, then piped up and said, "When you guys talk like that, we aren't listening." End of discussion.
Telling players/captains how you plan on calling the game during a coin flip is going to bite you in the butt. Because the minute you don’t call what you said you would someone is going to complain. Loudly.
Last summer, I ran into a coach at a pre-season scrimmage who I hadn’t seen in 2 years. I was AR2 for a state semi-final the last time I had his team. Two years down the road, he was still complaining about a pre-game where the referee told everyone how he was going to call handling, then with the game on the line, he decided to NOT call handling which lead immediately to the deciding goal.
They will even complain when you don't do what they thought you said you would do - when it's not really what you said.
You learn this very quickly when going from youth to adult leagues. Adults will use anything you say to try and use it against you. Kinda sounds like life!
Several of us have suggested that our lower division Adult Leagues adopt social distancing into their rules of competition. Everyone must stay 6 feet away from each other at all times. It would solve all kinds of problems.
Reminds me of a referee I worked with long ago. The guy tried hard, but . . . There was a one-game experiment where he was in the center for a larger-school girls game. I was on one line, while our association's senior referee was on the other line (yes, we were there to do a little more than assisting in that game). His speech must have made me cringe, because I could see players looking at me as he talked about "making it rain" (I'm not kidding) and several other things that I couldn't believe was being said. Let's just say that it was a good thing we were on the lines to ensure things didn't go too far off the rails. I had the center for the sophomore game after that. I just said my one line - "It's a high school game, so this is an extension of the classroom. Any questions?" After the coin toss, one of the girls came up to me and said, "We liked your speech a lot better."