Well. . .here in Columbus, we have a late-Fall session of Buckeye Premier for the U15-U18s which runs until mid-December. As you can imagine, it can get a bit chilly. Today was no exception. During the three U18B matches I did today, the high temp was about 35. Most of the time, it wasn’t bad - so long as you were moving. I started with two matches as ARs and they were nothing special. My middle was the last game of the day and I felt it was my best middle in quite a long time. I worked hard on getting wide and for the most part, I did pretty well with that. But this match reinforced for me the things I most need to work on before doing adult-league matches - getting wide sooner as the play develops. Of course, this means covering more of the field and requires the fitness to do that. So fitness and getting wider sooner go hand-in-hand. Read the rest of this entry »
Well. . .I’ve been away for a while. This fall, I’ve intentionally taken fewer matches. After Regionals, I felt like in prepping for Regionals I was neglecting my consulting business (I own a Mac-based support consultancy) and needed to focus on that. I also have a 2 year old at home, so I’m never hurting for things to do. So this fall, I’ve been doing some adult league ARs as I get more comfortable with the complaining and tempo of play and I’ve taken very occasional youth league matches.
This past weekend, I decided to do a U14G middle. I hadn’t done a middle in about a month and wanted to stay in the swing of things. For the most part, it was totally run-of-the-mill - but I definitely had an “Oh Shit!” moment. I got the match started and as the match progressed, I was getting some dissent from a player. I told her that I didn’t want to hear any more, but she persisted. I went to my right front pocket for the yellow card and - “Oh Shit!” I left the cards in my bag. Now. . .I won’t say that I did the right thing - but what I did was that I told the player that I was cautioning her for dissent and restarted play with an IFK for the opposing team. I did NOT do anything silly, like pretending to hold up a card or anything like that. But I was totally mortified that I did something as bone-headed as leave the cards in the bag. I’ve been a referee for 21 years and had never forgotten red & yellow cards. Fortunately, I got through the rest of the first half without needing them again.
All in all, the match went fine. I got a chance to work on getting wide earlier, but the next day I was definitely feeling the consequences of the layoff. We’ll just say I’m not in my early 20s anymore, so recovering from a layoff isn’t as easy as it used to be.
Today I was the CR for a U13G match with Blue & White. The ball was down in the White end. White player has her arms out away from her body and the cross comes in and strikes her arm. I really didn’t hesitate to blow the whistle and point to the spot (player was in the area). The current gospel from USSF adds the criteria of the player using their arms to “make themself bigger” when determining whether a handling is intentional. While the White player did not move her arm to the ball, in my opinion she used her arms to make herself bigger, cutting off passing lanes around her. As we’re setting up for the penalty to be taken, the AR on that side calls me over. When I get there, he doesn’t ask something like “what did you see?” or “why did you feel that was handling?”. Oh no. He poceeds to assert “that was a bang-bang play, that’s not handling”. I tried to explain what I saw, but I don’t think it mattered. He simply responded with “you’re wrong!”. I felt his volume and tone allowed his opinion to be heard by the nearest bench, but even if it wasn’t it was clear by the way he turned away from me in a huff that he clearly disagreed. Fortunately there was little or no protest of the call. At halftime, I tried to tell him that I have no problem with him disagreeing with a call but a sideline conference - especially right before the taking of a PK - wasn’t the time or place. He wouldn’t hear it. He was too busy taking it personally that I didn’t agree with him.
Now maybe it’s just me but I really think it’s not the place of an AR to tell the CR that he is wrong. At least as long as the CR takes the correct action based on what he saw. I have no problem with an AR saying he saw things differently, or to say that he would have called/handled a given play differently, but I think to say the CR is flat wrong amounts to the AR trying to call the match for the CR. And either way, I strongly feel that that conversation should never happen during a match or in front of players/coaches/spectators. The CR faces enough challenges managing a match without an AR throwing him under the bus.
Assistant referees. . .whether you saw things differenly or wouldn’t have called it that way or if the referee is just plain stepping in it, don’t forget that it’s not your call to make. Now in that conference, you can discuss what each of you saw and what you think the right answer is, then the CR can choose to use the info from the AR or not to use it. But - nothing personal - the final decision belongs to the CR and the CR alone.
Now. . .I totally appreciate an AR who helps the CR from stepping in a steaming pile. After all, an Assistant Referee is there to assist the referee. But that wasn’t the case in my particular match. Because I (as the CR) saw things differently (I’d also waved him down on one offside call earlier), he decided to take things personally and turn himself into an Insistent Referee.
2 comments CSR | Dealing With Knuckleheads, Professionalism, Rants |
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.
2 comments CSR | Dealing With Knuckleheads, Regionals Coverage |
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.
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.
1 comment CSR | Professionalism, Rants |
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.
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 -
3 comments CSR | Dealing With Knuckleheads, LoTG, Misc Ramblings, Spirit Of The Game |
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.
4 comments CSR | Misc Ramblings, Rants, Reviews |
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.