Unusual (positive comments from the losing team

ANR when assigned to a match you are responsible for the whole game. Yes the players are your primary responsibility but the technical areas and the people therein are also your responsibility. A coach making a few dissenting comments may be ignored but when it becomes repeated and constant it should be addressed.

In the game above you have 2 other things to consider:
1) It was an NFHS game. The NFHS rule book states that the game is to be considered an "extension of the education process". To me this says that players and coaches are to act in a manner that supports the teaching/learning of sporting behavior.
2) You had a 4th official. How the 4th was to deal with the technical areas should have been covered in your pre-game. By the time the coach had made the same complaint more than once the 4th should have been standing beside him reminding him of his role and the NFHS's expectations of how he was to fulfill his role.

The coach was impacting the game as evidenced by the fact that you felt the need to ask his players "am I missing something?" You should have, at a natural stoppage that occurred anywhere on that touchline, addressed your 4th and directed him to "address the coach regarding his role and impact on the game." The coach would then be fully aware that you expected compliance with whatever the 4th requested of him.

In this game you were given every tool possible, either through lack of pre-game instruction or lack of proactive in game management, you failed to use the tools you had at your disposal to require the coach to act in accordance with NFHS guidelines.

 

Hmmm. A bit preachy. Given the spirit of how input was asked for, and the spirit of the board, caution for USB.

 

I tend to give coaches a bit more leeway too, especially so long as it's just me they're criticizing and the content isn't out of hand. Sounds like you managed the game well, and it's hard to argue with the outcome.

Sometimes a coach will complain to try to get calls, but when it's all over he knows that you did a good job. Also, guys in general tend to fight hard but shake hands afterward. Not always, for sure, but it's nice when both parties realize the match is over and everyone can be friends again.

 

If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.

In light of your signature line your comment is ironic.

As someone who checks in here almost daily, I think I understand the spirit of the board. ANR requested input. He did not request complements only.

From reading ANR's prior posts and even his screen name I know that he is not a newbie and is looking for input that would help him in his aspirations. The game was a State quarterfinal for a state that uses the NFHS rules. He has a 4th Official for a reason. A State Assessor or Supervisor is looking at the whole game in making decisions on who is selected to move on to a Semi or Final. Putting on my assessor hat, using the facts provided by ANR, following are the questions I am asking the crew in the debriefing.
1) Mr. 4th, what was your impression of the behavior of Losing Coach (LC) starting at about the 30th min.?
2) Mr. 4th what was the pre-game instructions given by ANR.
3) ANR what was your impressions of LC's behavior starting at about the 30th min.?
4) Was the LCs behavior discussed at half time?

The answers to those question will be a component of and impact upon the report given to the committee that will select the referees for semi(s) and finals.

ANR hopefully you will take my posts as a sincere effort to help you think about the situation described in a manner that will help you improve the total game environment.

OK now I will take off my assessor's hat and be the crew member, fellow referee that most of us work with. ANR that was a great match, don't change anything, don't even bother to review or revisit anything about that match, good job, good job.

Due to being interrupted by having to serve a customer, I was not able to read ANR's reply until after I posted.

Congratulation on being selected for a Semi. The first post I missed the information of how your 4th assisted you. Glad to hear she was involved. I will leave the rest of my post as is, based on your first post it is the questions I would have asked.

 

Yes having the players be OK with the job you are doing and still having the coach or coaches acting a fool is something I have observed more when doing High School games. Many times you have the players who play year round HS and Club they know a good referee when they have one. Many HS coaches have been to influenced by the behavior of their Basketball, Football and Baseball brethren and think that it is there job to "work the referee" during the game. Most of the Coaches who exhibit that behavior are very cordial before and after the game, they just think acting a fool during the game is what they are supposed to do.

 

I have to agree with this assessment. The coach was impacting the play of the game. It affected the referee's performance. When you quetion your own decisions in the match it is impacting your role as a referee. It is gamesmenship pure and simple from the coach. The referee enabled the coach to continue to act in an irresponsible manner by not taking action sooner. Many times it is best when we see this is the pattern of behavior to take immediate action. Happens once or twice, ignore it. Happens 3-4 times at every decision that goes against their team, take action.

 

Sounds to me like the coach was playing you, and you let him. Your 4th was involved, but the coach seems to have known exactly what he could get away with, so he pushed that line and then stayed there. He succeeded in his quest, insofar as you have come here asking if you handled it correctly. A coach behaves this way to get in the referee's head. As Alberto stated, this is gamesmanship, pure and simple. If he made you question a call, even one, then he was successful. IMO, you didn't have this situation under control as well as you think. Although you may have worked it out so that you didn't have to get into a loud argument and ultimately send this guy off, and you made it so that you're decisions weren't debatable, that doesn't change the effect that this guy had on your performance, whether you realize it or not. That being said, we are not there for the coaches. If the players, especially from the losing team thought you did a great job, then listen to them. Also, if your performance on that match got you a better one, then take that as a learning experience. I give a fair amount of leeway to players, since that is who the game is about. My fuse with coaches is minuscule at best. Especially in HS matches, where this seems to be more of an epidemic, the USSF "ask, tell, remove" usually gets changed into "threaten to toss, toss" in high school. A loudmouth coach can ruin a game more severely, and much faster than any player.

The reaason for this, at least in my neck of the woods, is that the coaches aren't soccer coaches, they are high-school coaches. With a few exceptions (and interestingly, the exeptions are not problematic coaches), HS coaches are not trained soccer coaches, but are teachers or others who are there because of the coaching stipend. The only coaching they know is what they see in other American sports. In basketball, a coach will sometimes make a scene and get ejected on purpose to fire up their team. THat doesn't work too well in soccer. Many also coach a different sport each season. In the northeast, soccer is a fall sport. When you coach soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring, more often than not you have NO CLUE about soccer, you are just there for the money. These are people who learned to coach sports in AAU basketball, little league, and pop-warner pointy ball.

Unfortunately, there are referees like this, but when these coaches run across a trained soccer referee, they end up having a bad day. I will usually dismiss a coach or 2 in USSF in an entire year, although I try not to dismiss any, and they are generally younger youth coaches. In high school, I'm good for 5 or 6 in a 10 week season. My record is 47 seconds. If I can toss the same person twice in a season, even better. That way I save the team, the school, and the next referee from year of dealing with these people. We have a 2 dismissal rule here. If you are dismissed from 2 matches in a school year, regardless of sport, then you are ineligible to play or coach in any more interscholastic games or sports for the entire rest of the school year anywhere in the state. The players know who these morons are, and they only play on these teams for something to do. Of course they tell you that you did a good job, because you did. Many times they will apologize for their idiot of a coach, too. They know that if they are good enough to get a scholarship, they are playing in tournaments where they are being scouted on their select teams. As someone who played for one of these people, trust me when I say that if you think it's a pain in the ass refereeing that coach, you have no idea what it is like to play for that coach. We are always there to protect the players from each other, especially the opponent. Sometimes we need to protect the players from an idiot adult who is trying to live vicariously through their players. If the coach is yelling at you, throw him out.

 

I usually tell coaches before the game that dissent will not be tolerated in any fashion, nor will the questioning of any calls that are made.

As a ref, you should never reverse your call at the beckoning of a coach and as well, you should never let their complaining influence you. A coaches' job is to conduct his team and nothing else. The only time I will ever discuss things on the pitch is with a captain, who, in my opinion, is the only one who should have the power to ask about certain calls.

Im not liked by a lot of coaches but that doesn't matter. Most say that I call a fair game and keep the teams under control. Likewise, a lot of kids hate it when they are playing a good game, win or lose, and all their coach can do is scream at the ref.

 

I've read this now a couple of times, as well as gone back and read the original post a couple of times. And I don't get it. There was nothing in the original post to suggest that the coach's tactics had any impact on any subsequent call or that ANR didn't have the game under control.

 

That is not what I was trying to say, and I apoligize if that is the way that it came through. My point was that this coach was trying to work the referee. Whether the coach had an effect on future calls is immaterial. The bigger point is that he was trying to. Also, normally referees (me included) never think they they were swayed by anyone else in their calls. We all believe that we call the game on the merits, regardless of what other distracting factors we encounter. ANR may not have changed a decision (or thought he was changing a decision), but for him to come here and ask if he was right at least tells me that the coach got into his head enough for ANR to question his own decisions. IMO, that means that the coach was interfering, and ANR could have potentially changed a decision or 2 subconsiously.

I also think, that by reading the original post, the match was completely under control. My argument was that ANR may not have had the coach problem under control as well as he thought. THe original post was 2-pronged. The first prong was the congratulatory remarks from the losing team. It seems to me that ANR did a fine job and was recognized by the players (hand shake and a "good job") and the referee administration (semi-final assignment) for his performance. The second prong was the coaching issue. Although the coaching seemingly did not alter the outcome of the match, the issue of the coach could have been handled better.

 

How did the Semi-Final go? Did either Coach give your 4th the opportunity to use standing in close proximity technique?