Columbus Soccer Ref

Region II Regionals

CSR — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:00:28 +0000

Sorry to everyone. I’d been meaning to blog about my Regionals experiences on a more ongoing basis, but really haven’t been able to work it in. Some of the reasons will be clear in the review.

Day 1 - continued from last post.

Check-in was smooth for everyone. Then we all went to dinner, hosted by the Illinois delegation. And at 10pm was the nightly meeting. From what everyone told me, it was surprisingly short. I received my assignments for the following day - two AR1s. A U13B and a U14B. Game times were 8:30 & 1pm and both were at Rock Valley College. (U13 & U14 were at Rock Valley and U15+ were at Sportscore). Since we had to be at the complex a hour before game time, that meant leaving at 6:30am. I had some trouble getting to sleep since the beds are VERY hard. In another life, I was in the Army and even the beds in the barracks weren’t this hard.

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Coverage of Region II Regionals Begins Today

CSR — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:10:22 +0000

This year is the first time I’ve been invited to Regionals and have been looking forward to it for a while. I was planning to give updates of my experiences each day, if nothing else by using my iPhone. But fortunately our rooms have WiFi acces, so each night I’ll be able to fire up my MacBook Pro and give you the latest. Here’s where we are so far -

We got in late last night and got our room assignments and a basic outline for today’s events.
We’re staying at the NIU campus and the accomodations are a bit on the spartan side. 4 to a suite. Beds are rock hard. And hot water has been very hard to come by this AM.
We start the check-in process in about an hour and then the day really begins.

I’ll check back in tonight after game assignments have been handed out and break down the day’s events.

Update on BOMW

CSR — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:35:17 +0000

Back on May 27, I posted my review of the Spring Best Of The Midwest tournament which was hosted by the Chicago Magic. At the time, I ranted about a tournament that didn’t pay their referees at the field at the time of the match and promised to post an update to the situation.

Well. . .here we are three weeks later AND STILL HAVE NOT BEEN PAID! In-friggin-credible!!! In my working life, I’ve never waited three weeks for my first paycheck.

I’ve e-mailed my contact back on 6/6 and she told me to wait a week.
I e-mailed the same contact yesterday (10 days later) - no reply.
I e-mailed her again today asking her when I should expect my check.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with the tournament to begin with, so this is obviously not improving my opinion. Considering there are other tournaments over Memorial Day weekend with competition that’s as good or better - i.e. NSR Midwest Cup, or Dayton’s Warrior Classic - I’m certainly not inclined to put up with the goat rodeo that BOMW has turned out to be.

I’ll post again when I actually receive my check.

The 10-yard Myth & The Divine Right To Delay The Restart

CSR — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:58:49 +0000

I was recently pointed to Robert Evans’ excellent blog “For the Integrity of Soccer” where I was reading about an incident in Dallas. While it was often referred to, the video of the incident was never linked to. After doing some digging, I was was able to find it on YouTube - FC Dallas vs. CAP. In the match, the referee was assaulted amid a mass confrontation. Many of the comments at For the Integrity of Soccer about this incident opined that the CR was out of his depth and shouldn’t have accepted the assignment. Since I didn’t see the entire match, I can’t speak to that. But I think many of the comments did get the big picture - while it’s absolutely no excuse for assaulting a referee, the incident was brought on by the action/inaction of the referee himself.

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And Don’t Let The Door Hit You In The Butt On The Way Out

CSR — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:22:29 +0000

I’ve been a referee for a while now, and recently came across a situation where for the first I sent a player off after the match had ended. It was a U14B match at the Best Of The Midwest tournament. The match was pretty typical of a higher-level U14 boys match in terms of aggressiveness and physical play. In the match, I worked hard to determine what things the players were able to play through and adjust my definition of “trifling” accordingly. Indeed, USSF has been promoting this mindset all year, and in their Week 8 Lessons Learned said -

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Review of Best Of The Midwest Tournament

CSR — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:57:29 +0000

At least once a year I try to do some games outside the Columbus/Ohio South area. I like to see styles and levels of play I can’t necessarily see in Columbus. Since I have family in the Chicagoland area, I usually find a tournament in that area and try to work some games. This year, I worked at the spring Best Of The Midwest tournament hosted by the Chicago Magic soccer club. This is my review of the tournament. I think it’s important to note that this review is strictly my opinion of my experiences at the tournament.

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State Cup 2008 Observations

CSR — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:41:04 +0000

Well. . .the Ohio South State Cup 2008 is now in the books.

Apparently, Ohio South does State Cup differently than the other states in Region 2. In OH South, we have preliminary matches throughout April and then have the Round Of 16/8 the first weekend in May and then Semis & Finals happen the second weekend in May. I’m discovering that most other states in Region 2 have their State Cup as essentially a big single tournament. I think I’d prefer that way. As a single big tournament, you’re inconveniencing the top teams for only one weekend.

This is the first year I’ve done advanced State Cup matches. All in all, the games were quite good. The play was of good quality. From what I could tell, the best officials in OH South did the games. But. . .if there was one theme that ran throughout my State Cup experience it’s that the bench personnel - coaches & substitutes - were nearly always too close to the field. As an AR, I almost always had to avoid running into someone. I got very tired of trying to use “friendly reminders” to back the hell up. When I go to Regionals next month, I’ll be sure to keep this in mind for the times where I’m a fourth official.

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Whining About Law 15

CSR — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:08:55 +0000

I did a tournament recently and was definitely surprised at how much whining there was over throw-ins. In the matches I did, most of the complaints came from teams east of Columbus - notably from PA and Ontario, Canada. The majority of the time, their complaints were centered on how much spin was on the ball as it left the thrower’s hands. There used to be verbage in the LoTG that said something to the effect that the ball had to be thrown equally with both hands. That was done away with quite a long time ago - certainly long enough to be a non-issue for the U14 & U16 teams that were doing the griping. To be sure, Law 15 spells out the criteria for a valid throw thusly -

The thrower must face the field of play.
The thrower has part of each foot either on the touch line or on the ground outside the touch line.
The thrower uses both hands.
The ball is delivered from behind and over the head.

Nothing in there that involves spin. . .nothing that says you can’t pound the ball to the ground. . .and nothing that says you can’t have a light release over the head. Just because it’s a bad throw doesn’t mean it’s a foul throw.

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Getting VERY Impatient With Official Sports

CSR — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:28:31 +0000

Alright. . .I’m definitely feeling that I have to vent. I’m very quickly losing patience with Official Sports. OSI and USSF announced the new-style shirts at the 2007 MLS Cup. That was November 18, 2007. Now here we are FIVE MONTHS LATER and they still can’t meet demand. I waited until March (four months after their introduction) to place my orders. I’ve ordered all five short-sleeve shirts (gold, black, red, blue, & green) and the gold and black long-sleeve shirts - all in the Pro style. So far, I’ve received both gold shirts (short & long sleeve) and the red short sleeve shirt. So I currently have the black, blue, & green short sleeve on backorder as well as the black long sleeve. During a call to OSI today, I was told that the remaining four shirts are expected in mid-May. Are you friggin kidding me? I understand initially underestimating demand, but 4+ months after the shirts were announced to still have a 2 month wait I find completely inexcusable. I only hope my backorders are filled before Regionals in late June.

Perhaps I’d be willing to cut Official Sports some slack if I felt the new-style shirts were something other than a money grab on their part. The color of the new shirts is the same as previous, save for the new option of green. I’d feel better about being asked to pony up for new shirts if they were lighter/cooler, but while the new shirts may be very slightly lighter than the older style, they’re the same material so there’s no gain there. Indeed, USSF hasn’t even issued a phase-out date for the old style shirts. My understanding is that OSI’s new contract with USSF is for two years. Given the way OSI has bungled the delivery of these new uniforms, I’ll have a hard time rooting for them when their contract comes for renewal.

Mistakes Made = Lessons Learned

CSR — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:09:51 +0000

One major difference between players and referees is that referees can’t go to practice. Sure we can read the LoTG and the Advice To Referees, but real improvement can only come from doing matches, making mistakes, and learning from them. Of course the spectators, coaches, and players don’t want to hear/know that a referee is using their match as a learning experience. But my view is that I try to learn something from every match. Sometimes the mistakes/lessons are obvious and the results are equally obvious - and sometimes the mistakes are subtle but with results that are obvious. This weekend I definitely had a learning experience involving the latter - a subtle miscalculation that had dramatic effects on the match. As I move up and get higher-level and more competitive matches, I’m finding the mistakes and miscalculations often involve gray areas in the LoTG and man/match management.

Here’s the situation of my match yesterday -
The Midwest Regional League is a very competitive regional league involving teams from the 13 states of Region II. I was doing the middle in a U17 boys MRL match. We had White vs. Red. Everything was going remarkably well - the players were composed, very skilled, and generally settled. I was feeling really good; always well-positioned and consistent. At 43 minutes, white plays the ball over the goal line for a goal kick. The ball goes a long way, and the red goalkeeper is walking to the ball, and walks it back. As he gets back to the goal line with the ball, a teammate is telling him to hurry up - to which the goalkeeper responds “It wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t kick it so f@#*ing far”. (more…)