I can't imagine your state being that much different than mine, but these are generally folks who are given these high paying roles because of political connections. I've had AD's who have me follow their golf cart to assist me with a nearby parking spot to the field, knowing I'm coming from another game and couldn't be nicer. I've been approached at halftime to have a civil and articulate discussion on why a hand ball wasn't whistled in the first half for their team and they go out of their way to say goodbye after the game. And yes, I've had a few cases like yours where they walk by with the vocabulary of a neanderthal, where I wonder how they ever passed high school (let alone college) sometimes because they see referees as pond scum and have trouble making eye contact because they see you as way beneath them.
Depending on availability, schools in our area have the choice of 3 vs. 2 officials. Some schools will always use 3, some will always use 2, some will use 3 on bigger games. We've also had our assigner reach out to see if a school will take 3 officials for the price of 2 if we want to get someone a first middle on a low stakes game, or if someone needs an assessment on short notice. There was a school of AD, mostly with football backgrounds, who couldn't understand why it cost them more money for fewer whistles. I had a long chat with one while we waited for field hockey overtime to finish. He did have some semi-reasonable points- the ARs aren't always good so the CR doesn't trust them and nothing gets called, for example. My points about game control when it works well were taken, but he still believed in his "honestly, how many good refs do you guys have? why would I pay extra to get one more bad ref?" stance.
A couple of years ago, I did a dual at a small school. Varsity. No stands, so parents had to bring their own chairs. Kind of a sloping, side to side, grass field. Both teams co-ed. As my partner and I walked to our bags at halftime, a couple standing there pulled water bottles out of their personal cooler. "Would you like some water, ref?" Made my day, that they would even think of the referees.
My first year, AYSO in LA, I was reffing a Thanksgiving tournament. It was cold (for LA), wet, "filthy," as Peter Drury would say. At halftime a central-casting Soccer Mom came out on the field with a take-out carton of coffee in one hand, and in the other a boxtop with cups, sugar, creamer, stirrers. Magic.
It’s interesting how different the culture can be for refereeing vs other sports. Soccer, no one in high school or club level ever provides anything for the referees. In the other sport I do, those same schools that provided nothing will have a bunch of stuff out for the kids for the weeknight games and have no problem giving them to refs, or weekend youth games. The big thing you need to recognize about soccer is that we are treated pretty much the worst of any sport, at least financially, due to the number of referees and the length of the games. Maybe football is worse, I’m not sure. But for example with the few HS sports I referee, we only use two referees which already gives a better pay rate than a three person soccer crew, but the games are much shorter as well. Having three person crews in soccer really destroys the overall pay. The way I look at it is to look at the total referee pool of money that there is per game, rather than the individual positions. For example if your HS game block is 2 hrs per JV and V game, and the game fees are 90/70/70, a $230 ref pool per game. You could do two duals, and get $115 per ref per game. That would be $230 for an evening. Or 100/80/80, or whatever it may be. But we have this “we HAVE to have three man crew” so ingrained into us, that you would rather do a CR/AR in the same timeframe and get $160 or $140. Meanwhile in the other sport I do, with only two referees, over an hour long time frame, the ref pool per game is $210, so it’s actually “less” money the school has to pay vs. soccer, but we earn $105 per game if it’s just two hour long varsity games and the schools don’t have JV. I think that’s how these schools finances look at paying referees in these sports. They don’t look at the individual specifics of what is required for each sport either in number of refs, or game length, or exertion. They simply put a pool of money for the refs in individual games, and since soccer sometimes has more refs, and longer games, everything looks much worse for us.
Years ago, I had my first encounter with Kris. He was AD at a high school that was pretty gridiron football oriented and he was himself a football referee. He made the statement, though, that he would always ask for three referees for varsity soccer games. "Too many problems otherwise." At that time, we were not able to provide three officials for all varsity games, due to numbers, and some schools would only request two. I always thought it was great that Kris recognized the difference in game coverage. Roll the calendar forward a few years. He left the school to become Associate Executive Director for our state high school association, in charge of soccer, my boss as State Rules Interpreter. He was still officiating football, although his knees were telling him that guys his size weren't supposed to run. We got along great and still do. He's now shifted to being in charge of football and the side position of working with officials from all sports. So I guess it helps if the AD is also a present or former official, even if it's in another sport.
Here's the opposite. When my daughter got her FIFA badge, her first tournament was the World Military Championships. Yes, a lot of countries have a soccer team drawn from their armed services. The tournament was in The Netherlands and the games were at the grounds of the various pro teams. It seems that in The Netherlands each pro team hosts post game drinks and meal for both teams and the officials! And each team has a menu they always serve, which is different than what any of the other pro clubs have.
“that one “mid official” makes it easier for the 3rd good official better by allowing him/her to be able to focus on the more important duties that lead to game control and management of the participants. Lesson boundary line decisions and offside. Which in theory they help with.”
First HS scrimmage of the season and it can only get better from here. Bad GV and worse GJV. I was solo and I spent the whole night dodging errant shanks. And of course every one was accompanied by the classic “Nice!” call out from the bench and players on the field. I don’t know if the shank was nice or they were commenting on my athletic ability to get out of its way. I only got hit once so I think it was me.
Was doing a U19B game versus a MO v AL team during some college showcase last week. Two ECRL sides - top bracket. AL team is losing 0-2 but it's still tight in skill level. In the 79th minute, there's an foul in the middle for AL just breaking into the attacking third with the ball rolling towards the box. I wait 3-4 seconds before an AL player just above the box looks incredulously and starts to blabber about a "potential advantage." AL coach, who's never been a referee, immediately shuts him down "XXX, shut up! There were no options or space and waited for advantage that never came. He knows what he's doing." I look at him. I nod. He nods. Game ends 3-0 to MO. Love it when coaches agree with calls players try to argue and then tell them why.
Ah, I see. I never put when I tweeted my whistle. I waited 3-4 seconds, whistled for foul and the player started to babble about a potential advantage.
Gotcha! That's plenty of time to see if an advantage is coming or not. 4 seconds is actually a lot of time depending on the speed of the game
Waiting up to 4 seconds for an advantage, I do the same. Gives me much better results than not waiting long enough.
Years ago we had a soccer match at Columbia University at the exact same time that Columbia had a football game. The pointyball referees had a spread of sandwiches, chips and drinks. Then one of them came over to me and asked how much money we were getting for soccer, I think it was $155 as an AR. He laughed and said that his crew were each getting $750 PLUS mileage. I am relatively certain that pay gap has only grown over the past 20 years.
Yeah soccer refs don’t realize how much they get bent over in treatment financially, amenities provided, and general respect, until they do other sports. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say soccer is treated the worst. Although I recognize a comparison like yours with a money-generating college sport like football isn’t necessarily fair to compare to, I see it substantially at the youth level even with the same exact schools in high school, and youth clubs as well. And soccer refs have no problem with it at all. A few years back we discussed on here the National MLS next tournament, where they made clear that referees who only get a few games per day would not be provided any transportation nor hotel stipend and would get lucky to get a meal, likely costing each ref hundreds of their own dollars to attend. The general consensus on here was “well you have to pay your dues to get seen, this isn’t a big deal Compare that to the National youth water polo tournament in the summer, which had the following transportation stipends alone, in addition to putting out of state refs on planes together, fully covered hotel rooms together to carpool together in fully covered rental cars, and 1-2 meals per day.
Indoor HS boys game last night - late in the game, player on Team A takes out player on Team B with a dangerous slide tackle. Easy yellow card. As I'm talking to Team A's player, a teammate on Team B yells to me that I was "two seconds too late on the whistle". Really? You're going to complain that the whistle was too slow? Ok, here's your yellow too.
And proceed to blow the whistle immediately on the next clear advantage decision. When they complain, tell them to talk to their idiot teammate.
Did an MASL-3 game Saturday night. El Batallón's drums and horns came out. So the answer to what I heard was usually nothing but the drums...
I've also had to explain to players and coaches (usually in a pretty sarcastic tone ) that the time it takes to yell 'Hey!!!' or 'Handball!' is much faster than it takes to bring a whistle up to mouth and blow it. I know it's literally only one or two seconds, but I know to them it seems like 20 minutes.
I was AR for a game where someone complained about a whistle that wasn't soon enough. Or maybe it was just a call "Foul, ref!" Anyway, the center replied, "Would you give me a chance to get the whistle in my mouth?"
Another big factor is that every time their player gets breathed on it's a foul from their standpoint but you actually have to quickly analyze the play and make an independent decision (even putting potential advantage aside.)
I once said to someone, "Just to be clear -- I'm not making this call because you asked me to, OK?" He laughed and understood.