I was surfing the web blogs for some new material and this letter caught my eye. I took the name of the individual that wrote it, but I back up every word that is written here:
"Dear Soccer Parent:
I meant to say something to you Saturday. There you were at Skypark in Scotts Valley, watching the 1:00 PM game on Field #3. I had just finishedworking a couple matches as a center referee on the adjacent field. I letmyself be in too much of a hurry-- trying to get on with my day, so we didn'tget a chance to chat.I think that the game you were watching was an Under 11 boys game. Thereferee had apparently award a penalty kick that was being taken at theopposite end of the field -- nearly 100 yards away from where you werestanding.The first thing that I noticed, even from that distance, was that the centerreferee on the match looked only five or six years older than the playersaround him. Unfortunately, that didn't surprise me. For all the parentsthat come out to watch a Saturday morning soccer game, very few get involvedwith officiating. These games are dependent on a relatively small poolofficials who receive a little bit of training and typically get assigned tothe highest level of soccer game that matches their experience. They don'tget every call right, but every one I've run into tries very hard to do so.I was thinking about the maturity of that young referee. He has to use hisbest judgment in a situation where a number of adults will disagree withhim. I can't imagine that would be a comfortable situation for any youngboy or girl. I could just imagine how tough that would be if that refereeknows any of the parents around that field, as a neighbor, or maybe even ateacher -- how difficult would that be! Maybe that's why for all therecruiting of young referees that gets done Santa Cruz County, there isstill a growing deficit of officials, meaning we lose a lot of new officialsand the remaining ones must work more and more games.Anyway, I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't come over for a word withyou. I hope the Positive Coaching Alliance hasn't had the opportunity to visityour club because if they have, there's probably a team full of parentsembarrassed to be at the same game with you.By the way, the next time I hear you say, "Ref, you suck" to a human beinghalf your age, I'll stop by to let you know how gutless and pathetic youappear to me.
Signed....
The Referee
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3 comments:
Yes GC, I struggle having youth referees in the center in Fremont. When I have to have a coach leave the field in the middle of the match on a U12G Div4 match, I wonder how a youth would handle it.
Youths, particularly district III youth program referees, really do show some of the best a youth can do. To watch Chen or Salazar or the former youth Huffard and see how they handle their matches is just amazing.
One of the reasons I referee is that I long ago realize it was unfair to put youth referees in harms way in the center on many matches. Even adults take far to much abuse there.
Yours in soccer, TEK
I can understand that first paragraph. In Dublin, the referees are predominately youth covered.
I've seen the aboved mentioned in action. While I have observed all of the aboved mentioned and can still find things to tweak in their performance, they do show good professionalism out there. Something that some adults can learn from time to time.
Very noble of you to step in harms way in sake of the children. There is far too much abuse dispite the zero tolerance policy in CYSA. Unfortunately the idea for referees to take dissent trickles from a few certain high ranking referee that minimizes the dissent law. Because of this, referees (myself included) tend to let it build up so much by the time you caution him you wonder why the hell you didn't do it sooner.
In my CPSA debut (as a center referee) I was nervious and players sensed it. I had one player who was swearing like a truck driver while dissenting towards me. After I told him to shut up and he continued moments later, I cautioned him for dissent. TThe card seemed to do the trick because I didn't have a problem the rest of the match. However, one of my AR's was a national referee aand told me I wasted that caution because if he did anything stupid the rest of the match, I would have to send him off. I thanked him for the feed back, but respectfully disagreed.
On my last U17 Boys match where I had the slew of cards, I had one player telling me what I horrible call I made. Did it bother me? No, but I knew this team was a handful with other referees and I needed to take a stand against them, so he got booked with the rest of them.
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