I've recently been nominated to lead Iowa's mentoring program as the State Director of Mentoring (I realize that for any Iowa people on this forum, I've just given my identity away!! ). Needless to say, a program like this is a big job. As I normally like to do, I am focusing on one area to do it well and then will expand the program after some success. My initial focus at the statewide level will be to prioritize the mentoring of referees under age 18 and those who have two years or less of experience. I know several officials associations, including my new home association, also want to increase mentorship of high school and upper-level referees. But I want to stay focused at the new grassroots level. For those of you involved with mentorship programs either in your states, officials associations, or clubs, I will gladly take any advice or things to consider as we formally launch this program. I am particularly interested in any communication or outreach to clubs to let them know how you are implementing a program like this and what you are attempting to do for outreach purposes. Thanks in advance!
When I was SRA, the SYRA being lost in space, we got assessors and otherwise experienced State Referees who were not assessors to do youth tournaments. They would watch half a game, give the crew a 3 x 5 card with a couple of good points and a couple of ways to look better out there. Then they turned their chair around and watched the second half of the game on the next field, rinse and repeat. The last year I was involved, we saw over half of the referees in the state this way. All of this assumes that you have enough referees to cover the games without having to use those upper level referees, so they can mentor instead. The state youth association has been trying something similar on U-12 games recently. The U-12's are assigned with one referee and a "4th official." I know, it looks weird on paper. The 4th is the mentor who also gets to deal with the player cards, rosters and substitutions, which are areas in which inexperienced referees can screw up but it doesn't affect play of the game itself. Obviously, only the more experienced referees are assigned as 4th's. It also has the advantage that, since the 4th/mentor assignment requires virtually no physical mobility, the 'most heavily experienced' referees can still 'do games.'
I am not officially a mentor, but as an assignor who regularly has 10-20 newbie refs a season to assign, I find the best way to help those newbies is to get a mentor assigned to their first or second game. Or go myself. My belief is that they need hand holding to get started and advance from clueless to not-clueless. I have watched so many U10 rec games my head hurts. But that is where the new refs should be learning the ropes. Unfortunately, the new ref certification program has gotten worse and worse in the 13 years I have been involved in soccer reffing. I constantly find refs that honestly don't know what the 2nd to last defender is. Or that ARs do not go past midfield. Or have any clue about handling subs. Or where to stand on a corner kick. And this is just the newbie ARs. Centers that won't call stuff or do call stuff and no one knows who the kicking team is.... So many times I see refs who have been working for a few seasons and are totally not doing something basic. And when I point these things out, they tell me that they did not know and no one ever told them. Our state has made an attempt to get more mentors out there and I ask for them weekly. But with the ref shortage, I got NONE this fall. The refs who care and work hard are not the issue. They will figure it out. But that seems to be where most mentors are focused. Spend more time on the newbies and maybe, just maybe, they will move into the "good" group and stick around for more than 1 year.