The Separation of State

No there isn't an oppression of California so bad that I heard a rumor that California was going to split into 2 states. What I am talking about is the separation of State Referees. I've been talking with a couple people and one of the main topics is you wonder how some got their badges. Sound like a gripe? Well yes and no. In an earlier post I mentioned how I worked with one State referee who was making more mechanical mistakes then a grade 8 referee coming out of class. It was amazing we had game control. We have had several new state referees in the last couple years. Some have really worked hard on it. Others, you want to know what their story is.
One referee who has become a close friend of mine, has worked hard behind the scenes. I was happy he went for his grade 7 and then shortly later announced he was going to throw his hat in the ring for a state. I rememeber a few years earlier, one formally active member of the district, said this individual needed work. Well how much work? So I took a closer look at him and helped him with a few mechanics. But when he threw his hat in the ring, the question popped up, "Does he need work?" It was quickly answered during a fun run when he did the run and said, "My time wasn't good. I need to take this State badge seriously." I stopped worrying. When he was assessed, he failed one of his 3 assessments. Most cases this would stop a man dead in his tracks. But he took the two to make up the one and passed.
While this is going on, I ran line for a referee who was maintaining his State badge....on a U19 girls game. Might as well gotten the feedback before the game. With all the U19 and U16 boys games, and Amatuer matches (which any Amatuer match counts), some take the easy way out. Does that make them a good referee? No. It makes them lazy. They are just coasting.
Now I have been guilty of this. When I was overweight, I got my State Badge. Looking back, I didn't deserve it. I was not fit enough. On my first two assessments, my fitness wasn't an issue. My last one, I had Bill Miller. During the feedback he showed me 3 pages. One was the graph of a physically fit referee. One was a graph of a not fit referee. Then he showed me my graph he made during the 15 minutes of the second half. It was not fit. It was not as bad as the graph of an unfit, but it was closer to that then the fit. Woke me up. So I spent the next year losing the weight. However, I spent the first couple of years even though I was refereeing the amatuers to do my maintanence on U16 boys matches. Then I did my next one on U19boys. All of those matches didn't really pose too much of a challenge. However, my next assessment I pushed myself and did it on a WPSL match. There I got a bit more challenged, so I got more feedback. Basically my level matches increased.
This was the point where I looked at other State referees. And there were two types of Grade 6 State referees. Ones that did amatuer matches and those that didn't. It was that and people who thought I was already a grade 5 that helped me decide to upgrade to grade 5.