You could also get front row tickets to see Kill Tony and some of the 250 comedy assassins at joe rogans comedy mothership
Had our high school chapter meeting last nite...best yellow card description ever...player left the field of play without the permission of the referee in order to take a bite of a sandwich which a teammate had apparently went and purchased for him.
Just adding to the HS/leaving immediately piece... next time you are at a high school basketball game, watch the officials the minute the game ends. They are in a DEAD SPRINT to the locker room. Everyone seems to be able to figure out what to do if something occurs in the handshake line/post game.
And yet I referee a different high school sport where there is a mandatory handshake line after a game and we are required to stand in front of them and watch to make sure nothing happens and to report anything that does. There is no use in comparing sports to each other, especially when it seems like you are all using high school basketball as your reference point for everything
Except that's the sport that the majority of the administrators, both at the schools and the state associations, are most familiar with. As well as a chunk of referees, who are just guys who referee multiple sports and soccer is the fall sport they picked. I don't know about your state, but there are not a ton of "soccer guys" at high levels in the state association so you see directives come through that would make more sense on a basketball court or football field than a soccer pitch. Our state changed its cumulative card policy in the past few years (as well as shifted the burden of reporting from the referees to the schools). One of the AD's on the committee said "I don't see why this is a big deal, we haven't had a card of any color in the past five years I'd bet." One of the referee representatives pulled up the database and found something like 58 yellow and six red in the past five years for his school. Soccer is an afterthought. A lot of directives go out to all sports, or unspoken expectations are set, based upon something that arises in basketball or football.
I agree but that’s not the point, it’s about comparing sports to each other. Just because HS basketball referees apparently sprint to locker rooms after games doesn’t mean soccer refs necessarily need to/should be doing the same
but there is a very clear and understandable reason why they do it...and I totally agree with it. The idea that all pro referees have stay out on the pitch after a match and be subject to Coach/Player abuse is just ridiculous.
Last night was the first time I recall grabbing my bag and splitting right after the final whistle...but it was to get home in time to watch the Giants clobber the Eagles. As an aside, the teen who started the melee after the high school game and choked a photographer was back on the field as early as this week (or late last week?) and rewarded by playing at Red Bull Arena with his teammates. We're the same state where a nationally ranked wrestler was back on the mat after being suspended this spring for joining his dad in the stands to beat up spectators, thanks to a sympathetic judge. I'm rarely at high school basketball games, but it's comparing apples and oranges. The fans are only a few feet away from the referees. It's a different type of crowd. I'm a huge basketball fan and the comments coming from the crowd on their lack of knowledge of the game never ceases to amaze me ("Ref, he came over the top. What are you looking at!!!"). It always seems like a cop or crowd monitor has to get involved. If I was a high school basketball referee and had my own locker, I would also split right after a game...or more likely I wouldn't be officiating this sport.
In Massachusetts, MYSA last spring decreed that youth soccer games under its purview MUST have pre-game handshakes (near the touch line on the fan side of the field) and MUST NOT have post-game handshakes. It also decreed that, before the pre-game handshakes take place, a coach for the home team MUST read aloud a specified sportsmanship statement in front of the fans. So last spring I printed out and laminated some (white) cards small enough to fit in a pocket: 1. mandated procedure on one side 2. sportsmanship statement on the other side. Two curious events from last spring (I haven't done any relevant youth games yet this fall): 1. A coach who was so impressed by my laminated card that (at his request) I gave him one. We're both nerds. 2. A coach whose first language was clearly not English and who stumbled over most of the words in the first sentence of the printed sportsmanship statement. Clearly not anticipated by MYSA. He was relieved when I took over and read the rest. For one U14B game last May, I skipped this pre-game stuff. Rain was coming down hard, the touch lines were sufficiently flooded that we had to narrow the field with (in part) plastic disks, and the (few) fans were all huddled under a picnic shelter 20 yards from the field.
You folks nearly kill me everytime I try and drive up there, but at least there is some basic common sense.
In my state, up until a few years ago, HS soccer referees were required to monitor the handshake line. A couple of years ago, after a series of post-game "issues" involving referees at the handshake line, a state administrator asked, "Why do soccer referees hang around after the game?? Football and basketball refs leave immediately." He didn't get an irrefutable explanation, so the policy/referee instructions were changed to "leave immediately". (Note, I'm just a pawn that goes and refs where and when I'm told.... not a state HS sports policy maker )
"Mongo just a pawn in game of life." Our state high school association's Executive Director played soccer in high school. I know that because I refereed a couple of his games. As SRI, I monitor the red cards given in the state. At least in our state, the schools, by and large, are taking reds very seriously. And, if it involves racial, et al. language, they take it extremely seriously. I'm not at liberty to say what schools have done, but let's just say that many of the schools are dishing out additional punishments beyond just a one or two or three game suspension. There definitely is a difference between sports just because of the physical layout of the site. Football officials are physically much further from the exit than basketball officials. Football and basketball officials get dressing rooms, while soccer and baseball/softball officials don't. And how far away the officials' cars are parked varies all over the place. Our state has a rule that the home school's 'game manager' is to offer the officials an escort to their cars. But there is no penalty for not offering it and I have been offered an escort once this year. "It's Chinatown, Jake."
But they have somewhere to go, the locker room. How many high school games do you do where you have a locker room to go to?
I agree that it's not necessarily the best point of comparison for a number of reasons, but don't basketball referees generally hoof it outta there ASAP at all levels of play?
I know it’s a different, but I find it interesting that AYSO teaches referees to watch the end-of-the-game handshake while high school says to leave as soon as the game ends.
Yep. The same kids whose fall HS games we skedaddle from here, get monitored after USSF games in spring.
I think it kinda comes down to this. HS soccer is ans sport that happens to be soccer rather than. Soccer that happens to be HS. So the starting point is commonality among sports. (And with thanks to @Law5 who was part of the effort to bring HS soccer in closer alignment with FIFA.
Ours had less than 50% attendance for a "mandatory" meeting. What exactly is the punishment? Last year, it was about 75%. Folks who officiate college stayed home and got rewarded with games the past few days. Folks are upset about the usual stuff. Low JV fees, road teams consistently coming late (and no compensation for it), etc, etc, etc and wanted to make a point.
Again, c'mon up...contractually we get $35 for any late start. Our only mandatory meeting is for the new rules interpretation held in August. You do have to attend 3 of 5 of our meetings one of which can be our annual dinner celebration which no business can be conducted. This decision was due to a near brawl a few years ago which did involve some amount of alcohol.
This week I had the honor of visiting where I had my first referee training class in Fremont, California
An assignor (who is a regional referee, mentor, instructor, teacher in real life, etc etc) sent out a league wide email pontificating about how specifically ECNL boys teams U15 and up are doing the typical “grip socks underneath the cut off soccer socks” thing players do now, and how illegal it is when it comes to the LOTG because technically the sock color, tape, and under sock should be the same color. He went as far as to email the competitive league governing body and ECNL about this, and apparently now in his leagues games he wants incident reports sent in for every game where this is happening. Look I get that having the same color socks on both teams is very annoying, luckily it almost never happens. But how do you guys feel about being this pedantic about the under grip sock color (usually black/white) differing from the team color sock above it considering how universally it’s being done now?