How nice has the league become? I send someone off and it's all, "Oh, I'm sorry."
One of the things I know I need to work at is keeping my temper when misconduct is aimed at me; usually I can handle dissent, but when it comes to a critique of my lifestyle, parentage, or my ability as a referee - I know I need some work. I've never lost it, but I definitely have to restrain myself mentally from making things worse than they usually are.I think I've found the solution: think the comments are toward another player rather them myself. In my second game today I had a keeper throw a "Fuck you!" after my awarding a goal. The situation was tricky, but not totally uncommon, especially in the indoor game: a shot was taken, and the keeper bobbled the ball, but was able to direct to toward the side of the goal. There were several other players nearby, including attackers within a couple of feet, so I high-tailed it from just off the top of the penalty area right inside, because I know there's going to be a scramble; as I sprinted in, an attacker gets the ball as the keeper is diving for it, backs it up a step, and punches it into the goal. I heard a defender, maybe two, call for the ball out-of-play, so I decided to adapt Terry Vaughn's advice about penalty kicks: make the call and get the hell out of the way. On my run back to center, I heard the very loud, "Fuck you!" coming from the keeper, and immediately thought that it was directed not toward me, but to one of the attackers - maybe one made a comment to him or something - I didn't see anything untoward, and although they wanted a line call, that's one of the main reasons I tell captains week after week that line calls will suck, and even further that I tend to call it in play until I see it over the line, and a player sees it cross, they better keep playing.
So, my thinking that it was directed at another player, I paused briefly to consider my color - I could have gotten away with a yellow, but my gut was telling me red, that the match would deteriorate, even though it has been clean up until this point, if I didn't. I went with my gut and sent him off, and he immediately apologized. Not only that, this league has become so well behaved that I had three more apologies from his teammates before we restarted! After the game, when I got his name, I had to thank him, because he was one of the best behaved people who ever took plastic from my back pocket.
The next game looked like it was going to be close, both teams had some very fast players, but it turned into a blowout very quickly, as one team didn't have the support to get balls to their speedsters. I issued one card for an obvious foul (he literally shoved the guy into the ground), and ended up staring him down (it was clear he didn't want a talking to, and if the referee evil eye was enough to keep him in line, so be it), but his team was already up by five. That was the only incident in that game, and it actually came at an opportune time, because it kept the losing team's frustration level in check ("OK, we may be having our asses kicked, but at least the ref's on our side").
After the game, as I handed in my paperwork, the coordinator asked about the card, and said that the player asked to get a lighter sentence (essentially, no one-game suspension), and that he was really sorry for yelling at me. Yelling at me, I asked? Yup, apparently that, "Fuck you" was meant for me. OK, he's still really nice, but I think the red was totally justified now (I'm typing this with a big grin on my face)!
What should be really interesting is that one of the players on that team maintains a blog of his own; I'm curious to read what he thinks.