I bet some of you reading this at home think I make some of this stuff up, but I don't. If I am posting well after an event, I may not remember all the details exactly, so that is why I am writing this one while it is really fresh in my mind.
My son plays club soccer and high school soccer as well as being a referee sometimes. Tonight he had a game and I was in attendance. As many of you know, I am not a huge fan of high school because of the different rules, the whole extension of the classroom concept and a few other things.
This evening, I recognized the center and the AR on our side. Most schools have one side for the home team parents and one side for the away team parents. That is the case at my son's school. During the second half, while my son's team is up by 6 or so, I start to hear from behind me the following comments, increasing in volume and intensity as the game winds down.
"AR, you are not even with the second to last defender."
"AR you can't keep up play."
"AR you suck."
"AR, that was a foul, raise your f***ing flag."
I knew the AR well enough to recognize that he did one of my 7 to 6 assessments, so I KNEW he was a good AR and that he was keeping up with play as best as he could and that over all, he was doing what he should be doing, not letting his guard down just because the game was 6-0 (in fact, some will say that this is the time you have to be at your most attentive, because something might blow up just as you start to get complacent).
So I turn around to the yelling parent and ask him, "Do you know Pat?" He was giving him such a hard time that I figured he must know him and was giving him a hard time because they were friends and there was some friendly ribbing going on. What he said next told me quite the contrary.
"No, I don't know who he is, but he is laughing with the coaches and he is not paying attention and he is just home cooking."
At that point I disengaged, we were in an area where there weren't many other parents and I just started looking at my phone. About 2-3 minutes later, the angry parent starts up again.
"AR, you can't call that."
"Where did you learn to hold up an offside flag?"
"The ball went out back there AR, have some f***ing balls and make them throw it in back there."
I turned around and said to the guy that it was enough, that I knew that AR and that the crew deserved more respect. He tells me to go into his face and make him stop and gets up and starts walking towards me. At that point, I figure there is nothing to gain and I try to disengage again but not before he gets close and I smell quite a bit of alcohol on him, so I say to him "Oh you're just flat out drunk, that explains everything." and walk away. A couple of parents come over to see what is going on and I watch the rest of the game from farther down the stands.
At the end of the game (7-1 was the final), the parent comes back towards me and tells me again to make him shut up, to which I laugh and walk away. I really couldn't believe that this parent would do such a thing when there was nothing to really get all riled up about. The game was a blowout, and pinning things on the AR was really not something that made much sense.
So Pat, if you are reading this and heard the guy in the second half, just know it was me that stood up for you. You did a great job tonight! All I hope is that this guy did not drive home with his kid. Hopefully his kid had a driver's license and could drive his old man home since he was probably over the limit.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Refcation
Great weekend a couple of weekends ago. There is a somewhat remote assignor that I enjoy working for because the association really strives to take care of the referees that are traveling. So at the last minute, I reached out to her to tell her that I could be there with my daughter (my son is on a ref break, also called having a girlfriend. Side note, he will be back, he is going to need the money).
This assignor worked her magic and got me games for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and I was able to loop it to a vacation for Saturday through Monday. So I was able to work 8 games between Thursday and Saturday while my daughter worked two matches and mostly was stand-by. I enjoyed the time because when we were done, my daughter and I went to the movies one night, went to dinner and just had a good father/daughter time and someone was actually paying us to be there for a while (and work games or be standby for a while). Still, it was a good way to loop work that I enjoy with time away from the office and other distractions to spend one on one time with my daughter. It was worth more than all the reffing I did.
One note regarding that weekend that jumps on top of what I said in a previous post about kids no really knowing the rules. The other post referenced U15 girls and not understanding advantage. This new game was more telling than the U15 girls.
The scenario was a college showcase level U16 match (read, very experienced girls playing). Score is blue 2, white 0. White is pushing hard in the last 2 minutes of the match. Their strikers makes a great move on the defender, breaks free and heads one on one with the keeper. She then fakes out the keeper and sends her sprawling and is about to tap it in the goal when the keeper reaches out and grabs her foot on the backswing and knocks her down.
I blow the whistle, point to the PK and make sure the attacker is ok. Once that is settled, I walk over to the keeper and show her the red card as she was the last defender as the shot would have been a tap in with no keeper or defender. The blue team freaks out (not the coach at least) asking why that is a red card. I thought about it for a while, how do this girls not know what the punishment is for committing a foul that essentially can negate a goal? Have they never experienced that before? Have they had this before but the other referee did not pull out a red?
Since it is a college showcase tournament, there was a no playing down requirement in the rules and therefore, the blue team brought on their other keeper. White scores the PK and the game ends about 2 minutes later, 2-1. The coach for blue said that it was the right call, so I have that going for me. But what I question or ponder in this post is that the rules are really not well known or something else is amiss. I am not sure what. Why do you think there is a lack of understanding with some of the lesser seen plays in soccer? Is it the players or the referees? Is it because we just don't have that many DOGSO situations?
Funny thing is that the only two times I have shown red cards to girls has been for DOGSO. Never have I had violent conduct, two yellows for anything, etc. Boys on the other hand, the 2-3 reds I have shown them have all been for VC, two yellows or something along those lines. No DOGSO for them, but I do recall one game many years ago where a U11 travel game would have been DOGSO had I had the guts to red card an 11 year old keeper. I am sure it is somewhere in one of my old posts.
This assignor worked her magic and got me games for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and I was able to loop it to a vacation for Saturday through Monday. So I was able to work 8 games between Thursday and Saturday while my daughter worked two matches and mostly was stand-by. I enjoyed the time because when we were done, my daughter and I went to the movies one night, went to dinner and just had a good father/daughter time and someone was actually paying us to be there for a while (and work games or be standby for a while). Still, it was a good way to loop work that I enjoy with time away from the office and other distractions to spend one on one time with my daughter. It was worth more than all the reffing I did.
One note regarding that weekend that jumps on top of what I said in a previous post about kids no really knowing the rules. The other post referenced U15 girls and not understanding advantage. This new game was more telling than the U15 girls.
The scenario was a college showcase level U16 match (read, very experienced girls playing). Score is blue 2, white 0. White is pushing hard in the last 2 minutes of the match. Their strikers makes a great move on the defender, breaks free and heads one on one with the keeper. She then fakes out the keeper and sends her sprawling and is about to tap it in the goal when the keeper reaches out and grabs her foot on the backswing and knocks her down.
I blow the whistle, point to the PK and make sure the attacker is ok. Once that is settled, I walk over to the keeper and show her the red card as she was the last defender as the shot would have been a tap in with no keeper or defender. The blue team freaks out (not the coach at least) asking why that is a red card. I thought about it for a while, how do this girls not know what the punishment is for committing a foul that essentially can negate a goal? Have they never experienced that before? Have they had this before but the other referee did not pull out a red?
Since it is a college showcase tournament, there was a no playing down requirement in the rules and therefore, the blue team brought on their other keeper. White scores the PK and the game ends about 2 minutes later, 2-1. The coach for blue said that it was the right call, so I have that going for me. But what I question or ponder in this post is that the rules are really not well known or something else is amiss. I am not sure what. Why do you think there is a lack of understanding with some of the lesser seen plays in soccer? Is it the players or the referees? Is it because we just don't have that many DOGSO situations?
Funny thing is that the only two times I have shown red cards to girls has been for DOGSO. Never have I had violent conduct, two yellows for anything, etc. Boys on the other hand, the 2-3 reds I have shown them have all been for VC, two yellows or something along those lines. No DOGSO for them, but I do recall one game many years ago where a U11 travel game would have been DOGSO had I had the guts to red card an 11 year old keeper. I am sure it is somewhere in one of my old posts.
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