RefBlog

Soul Searching

I am very much my parents' child. I look a lot like my father, and I have my mother's enthusiasm. When we get into something, we tend to go all-out. At one point, she bought a bird, enjoyed it, bought a second and started breeding them; pretty soon she had 13 of the little buggers, of different breeds, all over the house (and guess who got cleanup duty when they went on vacation?). She also got heavily into postcards, became a dealer with over 15,000 in her home, buying and selling, until she got fed up with eBay rules that made being a dealer less and less profitable.

Same applies to me and reffing soccer. I started out reffing as a whim, as a way of getting a bit more exercise in. But then I found out I enjoyed it, started studying how the Nationals do it, got noticed at State Cup one year, went to Regionals, and started thinking about doing better games and advancing within the ranks of the whistleblowers. Over time, as I started getting better and better games, I understood why referees at the top of their game (those with National and FIFA badges) would just retire rather than keep reffing and share practical on-field knowledge with the rest of us plebes: when you've done great games, the lower games just aren't as much fun, and sometimes painfully boring. I actually wrote about that a year or so ago, although I couldn't find the entry here, and it still applies.

Lately, I've been performing a bit of soul searching with regards to my career as a soccer referee. I think I've peaked with the games I'll be getting: a State badge, which was my goal for the last few years, would only be attainable if my wife and I decided to either not have a kid, or I didn't participate in raising it (cue buzzer sound 'cause that ain't gonna happen). Same for regionals in the near future - I am a bit disappointed that I had to abandon going to it again, but not for the reason. Will I be getting better games? There's a NPSL team here, but you have to either be a State or have gone through a Pro Clinic to work those games - so scratch that. Scratch most division 1 men's games, because they're getting stricter on having only States center as well. So what's left? I've done the highest level State Cup finals they've given without a State badge (that being U16 boys), I can't get a call-back on NISOA (probably because they also want that pesky State badge), so college is out, and I've found my mental health is better when I do only a small number of high school matches.

So I think I've peaked - if not physically, then in the type of games. Not only that, I'm wondering if going though the rigamarole of even keeping the Grade 7 is worth it. I just got a nasty-gram about taking the physical again (first one I signed up for was canceled because of poor weather, second was missed because the SRA told people that the State Cup was more important), and I'm having my assessment on a Division 1 men's game, on a tiny field, after not having worked a game in three weeks (not hyperbole, either - I just looked it up in my calendar). If holding a grade 7 is supposed to indicate my desire to be a grade 6, but it's not logistically feasible to be a grade 6 - then is there a point?

I'm also getting really excited about my new sport - and fine, even though it'll help identify me, since it's unlikely I'm going anywhere in the soccer world, it really doesn't matter - I'll spill the beans. I'm playing roller derby. Honestly. Except unlike what we saw on TV in the 80s and earlier, this is a legit sport, no fake crap - and I'm having a blast playing it. Granted, I've only been practicing with the team a couple of months now, but I'm having a great time (despite getting knocked around quite a bit - but hey, it's still safer than when I was playing goalkeeper), and I can still referee. I figure I've only got a few years where my body can take that kind of pounding, and since there's no reason to devote myself entirely to reffing soccer anymore - might as well live a little.

I was also invited to try out to referee for one of the women's derby leagues, but since my wife is trying out to play, we both decided that one, there would be a conflict of interest, two, it would not be a good thing to have one of us make the team and the other not, and three, if she makes it I want to watch her play and cheer for her (which I haven't been able to do with soccer). But I am trying out to referee in it next year. Why? Mostly because it sounds like fun, and unlike soccer, there's room for me to advance in derby - the league I was asked to ref in already packs in more people that out local professional soccer team, and there's even a push to get it included in the 2016 Olympics. But it's not really all that, but instead the challenge that I won't be getting with soccer. Soccer refereeing is structured the way it is for very good reasons - I won't ask to be the exception (OK, I lie - I did ask, but only because an assessor suggested I do). This will give me a change to apply the things I've learned as a soccer referee, and apply them in a totally different setting.

For clarification, I'm not quitting soccer by any means, but I am wondering about its priority. But that won't matter for another year - for now I'll play and enjoy it (I have to admit it's a little hard to imaging going to a game with a paid audience, and not being booed), and worry about reffing what and how much later. (more)

26 July '08 - 13:50 - - default| Only one comment - § ¶

Rolled ankle

The sad part about reffing is not the inevitability of injury, but how wussy they sound compared to players: we get rolled ankles - a lot. It's worse in high school, but even during the club season, lines are awful, and they're often totally neglected by groundkeepers, and since you have only a very small area to run up-and-down, if there's a hole, you'll go over it a dozen or more times during a game, and so the inevitable happens, and you have to hope you can just walk it off.

I ended up hitting the same one twice, and although my ankle is a bit sore, I've had much worse. The biggest issue is that you have to divide your attention away from the game to mere physical survival; and the game wasn't bad either. It was kind of odd - I haven't done the unaffiliated league for several years now, but one of the teams was full of players I knew from that league - it made things quite interesting, and a smidge nostalgic. That, coupled with my seeing another one the next day at a soccer supply company (I found my turf shoes were ripped in two places, just a week before Regionals, and had to get a replacement right away), it was just nostalgia city.

The more I see division one men's games, the more I notice the whining. I don't think it used to be that way - I didn't notice it doing lines the last few years, but have this one. It used to be that third division men was all hacking, and first was all skill. And while there's still not nearly the amount of hacking that goes with the lower divisions, I think there still needs to be an amendment to my thoughts. Apparently, mental things don't change, no matter at what level you play.

24 July '08 - 17:01 - - default| No comments yet - § ¶

At least my attitude was good

It's amazing how people who've grown up watching and playing this sport can be so bloody ignorant - you kick a ball, at point-blank range, into the guys arm (which is plastered against the side of his body), it's not a freakin' hand-ball! Nor is it a handball when you kick it against someone's arm, when his back is turned and couldn't see it coming!

If this is what comes with first-division men's amateur soccer, I despair.

I have to wonder if some of it is because the team is made up completely of immigrants, from a hodge-podge of different countries, and here I am, the lone white-bread native-born USA citizen, and they thought they could be a run at me. No idea how useful it was, as I ended up handing out three dissent cards (I don't think I've done that since my first year reffing high school), could have easily handed out two more more, but I held off on the initials bookings until they turned their attention to my assistants.

Did I mention they won, too? Rather handily, in fact. Take the bitching and moaning out of it, and it was a pretty interesting game - a classic matchup of young and fast, versus skill and cunning. While the winning team had no nowhere near the speed, they played one-touch passing, kept the pace down, and scored crafty goal-after-goal - and after falling behind 2-0 at the outset.

The bummer is that this willl probably be the only 1st division men's match I'll get (since I'm not a State Referee), and while I know I had some rough spots (I mean, how well can I get the feel of that level of game when I only do one a year?), I think I did relatively well. But I made it, and I had fun, and did a lot of smiling through the whinging - so at least my attitude was, even if their opinion of me wasn't, good. (more)

17 July '08 - 16:10 - - default| No comments yet - § ¶

No good deed goes unpunished

You know what should have happened? I should have heard from the players something along the lines of, "Well, he made an extra effort for us, he could have said 'No' right off the bat. We tried." Instead, it was, "The ref won't make me play, even though I came all the way from ____," followed by the inevitable, "fucking ref."

So, I'm the bad guy again, and I think I went through some extraordinary lengths to try to get a player to play, and I didn't have to do it. Again, it's a simple situation: the player has no pass. They say they had no pass last week, but had a letter from the league that allowed her to play - that's no problem, because the letter gets included with the game report, and if the letter is a forgery then there is hell to pay (by the team, not the officials). The problem is, they didn't have a letter for this game - and they are required to have a separate letter for each match they play - and their team captain who, presumably, would have it wasn't coming to this game. They didn't even have a copy of last game's letter.

So here's were I thought I would be clever, and terribly accommodating - if they can get the letter and email it to me, I'd get it on my phone and we could let her play. Seems more that reasonable, no? They thought so too, at first - so they made some calls and got the "letter" scanned in and emailed to me. Problem was, it was scanned as a .pdf, which my phone won't open; so they did it a second time (at this point my center told me to keep my cell phone with me on the line to check the mail as it came in) - but when it came in, it wasn't the letter I was expecting, but a scan of her pass. But it wasn't just one of her pass, but two passes - including a player we had already checked in!

By now, 30 minutes into the first half, the player sitting out has whipped her team into a mild frenzy, and they're all complaining about why she can't go in (despite them being up 7-1, she's somehow absolutely critical to their team). The center and I talked some more about it at half time, and agree that, no - it can't happen (not much of a discussion, but him saying we'd discuss it at half-time diffused things a bit). And now we go back to the top of this article.

Fucking ref? Fucking unappreciative players. (more)

08 July '08 - 09:29 - - default| six comments, already - § ¶

4th Official

I've known the center for this match for a long while, but we've never worked together before. She got her National badge last year, and I've heard from multiple sources that she's on the fast-track for a FIFA badge. I expect next summer I'll see her on TV working the new professional women's league (they will have a TV contract, right?).

I only had the fourth today - the assignor was looking for more, but I just wasn't available; but I said I'd help her out for the last game of the night, which was this game. The game itself was really tame for a U18 girls final - mostly because most teams were going to Regionals, so aside from some bragging rights, it really didn't mean much.

07 July '08 - 15:48 - - default| No comments yet - § ¶

What was I thinking?

OK, it wasn't an awful game, but it certainly wasn't my best. Because I'm not as available for games this year as I've been in the past, I'll be wrapping up the State Cup shortly. But this isn't the way I'd like to go out.

A few things threw me off - first was the wind. It threw everyone off, actually - it was very strong and very gusty and it would take the ball at seemingly random times. This mucked up my positioning a lot during the first half. The second half was a series of brain farts that thankfully didn't alter the outcome of the game - it just pissed me off.

The game itself wasn't that good - 16 girls game, and neither team played well enough to do much, juding by this one game. The team that should have won, but didn't, had plenty of shots in the first half when the wind was at their back, but none of them were quality and they went into half scoreless. In the second half they kept possession, but could move the ball up enough to take a good shot, and their opponents got a fluke goal, courtesy of the wind, and ended up taking the game.

The brain farts in the second half, late (to make things worse) were some blown offside flags; I've been getting some conflicting advice on the flags - one one hand, I've been nagged for not looking at the ARs quick enough to see the flag (and in some cases, rightly so, taken to task for spacing out on them altogether). But on the other hand, I've been told repeatedly to hold-off on watching them, especially if others are in close contact, to watch for any potential problem or foul, rather than a possible flag that may or may not be there; when the later is brought up, it's usually said that if there's a flag, "people will let me know." In this case, it was more of a space-out issue, and when I was alerted to the flag, let the play start right-away, rather than holding up the restart for a few seconds to allow everyone to get into position (since it was my mistake) - but I didn't, and a second goal was nearly scored because of it. What was I thinking? I know this stuff. (more)

01 July '08 - 00:01 - - default| Only one comment - § ¶