One of my other takes, which no one brought up, is that they left the CR alone amid that mess. Their defense is "Well, we told him let's go" (you can see one of the AR's wave to him to say let's split) but he stayed.
This is what I really don't get at all. This wasn't just a few 'handbags and mouthing off', it was nearly a full out brawl, with players physically contacting each other (and a few adults). This is certainly a reportable issue. So, why not just simply state what you saw, say it happened while your were leaving and you witnessed it from afar, tell the State that you were leaving, and that is all. Instead, they (should) face some sort of sanction for lying and trying to cover it up.
Because in the officiating world in the modern era, honesty is rarely the best policy. Long gone are the days where you can call an assignor on the way home and be told off the record that you could have handled things better. In their mind, if they tell the truth, the assignor might not give them equivalent matches in the future since the belief would be "they lost control of the match". I am sure they believed that the cameras stopped recording at the final whistle. They would never imagine they'd be captured walking off with a bottle in hand as if they just left a beach while this is going on. There are no sanctions because they broke no NFHS or State rules. County playoff assignments for this week for two of the referees in the video are similar to what they've received in the past. The NFHS booklet does not come close to even covering a referees responsibility prior to reaching the parking lot area. The State Officials Handbook does not cover this either. Our state is no different than what others have said here, which is that the Chapters are saying it's ideal to leave once the match is over, but there is nothing in black and white.
The 'leave immediately' instruction is based on the fact that the schools want to be the ones in charge of what happens at their games. It is the schools' responsibility to deal with all of that stuff. Now we all know that the schools are rarely prepared to deal with stuff like that, but it does fall under their jurisdiction. We had a high school boys varsity game a few years ago, cross town rivalry, all Hispanic team v. a roughly half Hispanic team. Student spectators during the game were insulting the latter team's Hispanic players for playing with those Anglos. Game ends. Referees split as the spectators come onto the field to confront the players they felt were traitors for playing against their team. Coach from the home team (I don't remember which team) runs to the parking lot and demands that the referees return to the field to deal with the mass confrontation. They declined. Personally (I wasn't there), I think the coach just wanted an excuse for getting out of the stadium himself.
Why would they want to go back to that chaos. First, the match is over, so just leave. Second, and more importantly, WFT were they going to do? Card the fans on the field? Don't know if the beatings or wild derision of laughter would have come first. If the AD, any security the home team had, and possibly the home coaching staff couldn't keep the fans away, how were 3 referees supposed to do it? Ask nicely???
I'm not Jomboy or a body language expert, but on the video you can see a coach venting and pointing at the direction of where the AR's were walking. I doubt he's talking about a play that happened 20 minutes before. There is a culture among coaches who think we're like NHL referees, where our job is to put our body on the lines and break up fights. They refuse to take responsibility for the actions of their own teens. I don't doubt your state does, since you guys are referee friendly and paying $130 a match. Our state does not have anything in writing covering this.
My state has made it clear for the past couple of years we are to exit immediately after the final whistle neither participating in nor observing the handshake line. In an annual recert clinic they went so far as to imply that if we issued post-game 2nd YC or RC's for anything at us, they might not he honored (standard suspensions) because we "should not have still been there." "Okay, but what if we have a JV or girls varsity game starting right after that? Do we go to our cars, wait 15', then come back?" Crickets...
c'mon up...our traffic here in New Yawk might even be a tad better than in Houston (was there back in March to see my Mets play) and it was only 92 degrees in the shade.
He neglected to think about (or just mention) the fact that we don't pay state taxes... There is nothing quite as entertaining without being a distraction as crew members saying things like, "What is this BS!? How do you deal with [the humidity]?" and "Hey I'm not from around here either, this is hot as **** for me too." At one point this summer I had a string of 5 games with someone on the crew that said something along the lines of, "F this heat/humidity." Meanwhile I look at an outdoor thermostat and start sweating because my body has adapted.
oh c'mon my property taxes here are now well over 4x what we paid when we bought the house back in 2001...so I might sell now and move to AUSTIN...l hear it has a pretty good music scene...lol
Recert? For high school? I'm guessing you mean outside of the yearly online tests. In our area, the local chapters have come up with in-person training and it seems that everyone's heart is in the right place, but the whole thing is dysfunctional. In USSF, states are supposed to have a "Director of Training" or something comparable. In high school, there is no such thing so you have on-field sessions where people are getting contradictory advice about positioning and class sessions that turns into old-timers venting at the instructor.
I have yet to wear long-sleeves in either USSF or high school matches and we're in mid-October. We've been lucky in this part of the country so far with average temps in the 70's in September.
haha...today I will break out the long-sleeve (60 degrees for a temperature high) for my big modified (Junior High) soccer match.
So in Pennsylvania... Pass one test, one time, get registered as a [sport] official, lather, rinse, repeat.
Yes besides the annual online test, it's an annual mandatory in person meeting for HS that is just PowerPoints of policy & rules changes and the directives du jour from the state. Zero on-field work, it's a combo rules meeting with coaches who must also attend. No reason it should not have option to attend remotely, but alas they want everyone to drive to one of the few host sites... It's technically not a full recert, but we can't ref that year if we don't attend.
Tuesday night game, 9 p.m. 71 degrees. Last night, I wore long sleeves for the second time this season. I was working with a first year high school referee, a woman from Cuba. I loaned her my gloves because her hands were so cold.