OMG Gabriel turned his head last night.

To bring you up to speed, after Gabriel got his shunt put in, for 3 weeks they kept him on one side. After a few days of this I voiced concerns. I was concerned his neck would not be limber. I was right. It's been a year and Gabriel has finally got the neck strength to turn his head. Which is good. Yes, we celebrate what seems to be the smallest things because the more he does, the better chance he has at a normal life.

Marlena's soccer game was a disaster. Two people had a bright idea to widen the goals, which one puts less integrity on the center bar which could and has been a potential danger. I voiced this, but being that I am the ASS coach, with a State Referee credential, I was not heard. As a result, nobody got hurt (hopefully nobody in the following games did either), but we got out scored by a long shot. 5-0. We didn't even get a shot on goal. The players played, but not as a team. The good note is we don't have to set up the rest of the season so hopefully I don't need to have this discussion again. It could have been a closer match had they left the goals the way it should have been.

I had a good U19 Boys D3 match. I had good assistants which helped too. But first the pregame. My friend Jesse was doing the center and I had to take a close look at him because he called me Saturday to see if I could take his CPSA game. Since I gave the day to my Oncall partner, I couldn't leave my post unmanned, so I had to decline. Truth is I had my heart set on being a bit lazy with the family (hi honey) so it was an easy decision to make even before I realized I truely was unavailable. Back to the story on hand. I saw he was barely keeping up. But I was releived because I realized I had 3 referees for my game. His center was a disaster because three players needed to go to the hospital. Two on head injuries and one for a cut. The irony of that one was they called an anbulance for the head injuries but both were driven to the hospital by the time the bus got here, but the 3rd player it was pretty convient. Dr. Allen made a huge mistake in the game. He was going to take the player to the hospital but he was the only credentialed coach so if he left, the game was abandoned. Problem was he showed up 3 minute later hoping to resolve his match and half the players on the other team have left.

I get to my boys match and it was a pretty physical game. I kept them under enough control not to kill each other. There was some taunting going on which I stepped in and dealt with on two occasions. Both with cards. Some foul language. Boys will be boys, but here where it started to be an issue. Goal was scored against the white team and the keeper let out an outburst of "You have got to be fucking kidding me!" I couldn't imagine what he had a problem with besides being scored on so I looked at my AR and he didn't seem phased. I could only guess he was upset because he defenders left him high and dry. That said I let it go with a verbal talking. The second incident, was the player on the other team who said, "You watch your fucking mouth." Okay now it's personal, but not a send off, so I put him in the book. This didn't sit well with the coach, so he talked to me and asked me to talk to the players. I told him it depended on the content and context. Second half was pretty busy with cards, but I did get the keeper for another taunting incident, so I have been consistant. At the end of the match, the both of the losing coaches said at the end of the match on two different occasions, it was the best reffed match they had all season. That made me feel good.

Just read Bob Evans piece of Dissent in the MLS. Before you read his, you may want to take a look at the article it is referred to. The title was appropiate, "MLS plays the crying game"