Columbus Soccer Ref

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.

Facilities

• Parking - Definitely a mixed bag. My first game was Saturday morning at 8am. The referee policies page they provided said to show up 45 minutes early and it seemed like it had to. I waited in line for better than 20 minutes in order to park. Sunday morning was much better. But there’s only one entrance and they charge spectators/players/etc $5 per car for parking - which slows everything down, of course. The parking lot was on grass. The exit for the complex is about a mile long and honestly seemed like an off-road adventure. The cars exiting the complex also kicked up quite a bit of dust. Suggestions — Make parking faster and smoother. Perhaps by adding a second lane or a second entrance. Pave the parking lot and exit road. If we’d had heavy rains, parking would have been nothing short of a disaster. Paving the exit road would make me feel like I didn’t need an SUV to survive the trip home.

• Fields - Overall, a disappointment. On Saturday morning, the field I was on was pretty marginal. There were significant patches of bad grass or outright dirt. The field was at an angle such that one side of the field was higher than the other. As a result, there was a swale running the length of the field. With the heavy rain the area had in the spring, it seemed like the water built up in the swale and killed significant patches of grass. Also, being an AR on the high side was a definite adventure. Lots of small patches of grass interspersed with dirt - perfect for grabbing the ankles of a side-stepping AR. The field on Sunday was better, but only slightly. Running a middle wasn’t so bad, but again, the AR on one side was definitely in for an adventure. Lots of grass interspersed with dirt. The fields on both days were so hard it felt like running on a parking lot. Considering the money the Magic had obviously put into the complex so far, it seemed to me like the fields weren’t very well cared for.

• Other - Most tournaments don’t think carefully enough about the positioning of port-a-johns, and BOMW was no exception. On Saturday, the closest port-a-john was a field-and-a-half away from the field I was on. When the tournament schedules so tightly that there’s only 5 minutes for halftime and 5 minutes between games, this is a big deal if they care about staying on schedule. When you have a referee scheduled for multiple games, fluids must be consumed/replenished. And we all know what happens after that.

Administration

• Online assigning for this tournament was a bit quirky. I set my availability online without a hitch. When they presented my game assignments, it was straightforward enough. But the only option was a check box to confirm the assignments - and there was no option to decline (releasing the game back to the “available” pool). I e-mailed my contact about any assignments I couldn’t accept, assuming this was the right thing to do. But the process was certainly less than intuitive.

• I’ve been a referee for the better part of 21 years, and this is the only tournament I’ve ever worked - or even heard about - that doesn’t pay the referees after each match. Of course the teams had to prepay well in advance. They charged $5 per car for parking. So it’s not like they didn’t have the money. To make matters even more screwed up, they demanded my SSN in order to get paid. WTF?!?! This point alone will ensure that this will be the last time I work a BOMW tournament - or any other tournament that doesn’t pay the referees the same day. I mean they pay nice ($35 for CR and $30 for AR), but if the tradeoff is waiting a few weeks for the money and getting a Form 1099 then no thank you! Maybe other referees are used to these hassles, so they just accept it. I don’t know. I’ll post a followup when the check arrives.

• The Referee Policies and Rules documents they distributed for the competition dictated that the referees would not need to check player passes & there would be no coin toss. And yet it seemed that the field marshals didn’t check anyone in, and neither did anyone else. Well great, what if I have to send off a player? I also saw a ton of players come onto the field with bracelets and/or earrings. When the tournament schedules the matches so tightly, I understand having the field marshals check the players as a way to assist the referees. But they have to actually do it.

Level of Play - A Tale of Two Tournaments

• On Saturday, I had three games - a U18B AR, a U16B AR, and a U15B CR. The level of play was WAY below what I expected for a tournament that draws teams from a wide region. The U18B and U16B matches were remarkable for their complete lack of physical or aggressive play and the slow speed of play (for U18B). The same could be said of the U16B match. The U15B match where I was in the middle was closer to what I expected, but still a far far cry from the top-flight matches I’d been doing as part of OH South State Cup.

• On Sunday, I had five games - a U13G CR, a U14B AR, a U14B CR, a U14G AR, and a U17B AR. The U13G middle had me convinced that the level of play for all of my matches would be downright bad. But the rest of the matches were a 180-degree change. The last four matches were spirited, competitive, and much more skilled.

• In looking at the schedule, apparently for most age groups there are two flights - a “Premier” flight and a higher “Champions” flight. From what I can tell, my first four games were on the lower “Premier” flight and the last four in the “Champions” flight. What a difference!!

• When I expressed interest to the organizers in doing games at the tournament, I told them I was a USSF Grade 7. So even though I was from out of the area, that should have told them that I had some experience, that I’ve had some advanced training and had convinced an assessor that I was capable in a competitive U17+ match. So I don’t know why they would waste that on four matches that they presumably knew wouldn’t come close to challenging me. Indeed, in those first four matches the challenges were in trying to stay focused and trying to avoid picking up bad habits. They certainly didn’t do squat for helping me work on the things I needed to improve. To be fair, the last four matches were easily within my expectations in the level of play.

Experiences With Other Referees

• In my Saturday games, I was paired with a man and a woman who were both probably in their late 40s or early 50s. The first Saturday game was a U18B. As I said earlier, the level of play was remarkably slow, non-aggressive, and lacking in physical play. Especially compared to the U18B middles I did a couple weeks ago at the Nike Challenge. In this game, the lady was in the middle and she simply couldn’t keep up with play and I felt her foul recognition was highly suspect. She didn’t even come close to matching the intensity level of the players - as low as it was. If this game had been like the U18s I did a couple weeks ago - fast, physical, and a high level of play - they’d have eaten this woman alive.

• The second Saturday match was a U16B and it was the older gentleman’s turn in the middle. Based on his performance, it was obvious that this guy is a “middle third referee”. He never left the middle third of the field. As a result, he missed quite a bit. Again, if the level of play was comparable to what I see in Buckeye Premier at U16B he’d have been in real trouble. His foul recognition was only slightly better than the lady who did the first game - at least for the fouls his limited positioning allowed him to see. But what blew me away was the guy shaved 1:30 from the first half and 2:45 from the second half. HE CHEATED THOSE PLAYERS! They paid a significant entry fee, and in most cases were guaranteed only two games. To have one shortened by 6% is a shame to me. If I were one of the coaches, I’d be totally pissed.

• The third match was a U15B and I was in the middle. It was pretty one-sided. The winning team was probably on par with what I see in Buckeye Premier, but not great. As my ARs, the lady seemed to try hard, but didn’t really keep with play. The older guy really wasn’t able to keep up with play. But I had a bigger problem with him as my AR. I try to look at both ARs at each and every stoppage. Whenever I looked over at this guy, his attention was obviously elsewhere most of the time. As an AR, he was completely worthless to me.

• Sunday was marginally better, though I was usually paired with the same older gentleman from Saturday. As the level of play picked up, he improved if only slightly. He was still not keeping up with play and still of no help on fouls in front of him - especially the clutch-and-grab fouls from which the CR is usually screened.

• In my final match (Sunday afternoon), I was an AR on a U17B match. The level of play was definitely along the lines I’m accustomed to - fast, physical, and aggressive. The CR was an older gentleman (mid 50s?) and he really wasn’t close to keeping up with play. His piss-poor positioning was responsible for him missing several VERY hard fouls, many of them deserving of cautions. His intensity level was nowhere close to that of the players and not once did I see him use personality or presence to diffuse situations. Sadly, I’m not sure he even knew there were situations that needed dealing with. As an example of this. . .in the first half, I’m the AR in the Gold team’s defensive end and I’m the trail AR on the play. Gold player is on the ball moving toward White goal and is approximately 15 yards past the halfway line. I’m the trail AR and play is in the CR’s quadrant (about 25 yards away from me) and the should have a good look (if positioned close to properly). White player stops the Gold attack by flinging his body at the attacker’s body with virtually no attempt to play the ball - and the collision is violent. In my opinion, it was clearly a tactical foul and worth of a caution - at a minimum. The the nature of the tackle certainly bordered on excessive force. No whistle from the CR. No verbal comment from the CR. As the trail AR, all I could do was grimace. Approximately 5 minutes later, the same White player did the exact same thing in the same spot on the field - flung his body at the attacker to stop his movement toward goal. Again, the tactical nature of the foul in and of itself was worthy of a caution - and again the tackle bordered on excessive force. And again - not even a whistle from the CR and no comment. However, in this instance the White player injured himself (no doubt due to the very reckless nature of the challenge). I mentioned this to the CR at halftime and noted how that crap stopped when the White player went off injured. I told him I thought the genie was coming out of the bottle and suggested he inject more presence to settle things down. But the second half wasn’t much better. This guy probably would have been fine on any of my Saturday matches, where the play was slow and timid. But his positioning and foul recognition was simply not up to the challenge this match presented him. I was positioned along the spectator’s side and I hope my body language didn’t give away to the fans how bad a job I thought the CR was doing. This is something I’ll definitely have to work on before Regionals!
• Unfortunately, I never saw any assessors working at the tournament. I think it’s a shame that most tournament directors don’t use assessors to help evaluate the level of officials for the tournament.

Overall

If I had to assign a letter grade to the tournament it would probably be a D - tentatively. However, a big part of me feels that an F is actually deserved solely on account of not being paid at the time of the game. Indeed, after my first four matches my feelings were such that if I was thinking more about trying to stay focused on the game and to not pick up any bad habits it meant that I wasn’t having any FUN. That the level of play picked up on my Sunday matches is about the only thing that would convince me give a D instead of an F. I felt administration was a C, but the facilities deserved a D. If I had to make two suggestions -

1. Make the tournament smaller. There were clearly too many inferior teams accepted and the quality of play suffered greatly as a result. For a tournament calling itself “Best Of The Midwest” I shouldn’t encounter teams that would be fortunate to finish mid-pack in my local league. I certainly don’t feel the teams I saw represented the “Best Of The Midwest”.
2. Improve the facilities! Not to put too fine a point on it, both of the fields I was on sucked. I shouldn’t finish my matches thankful that I didn’t turn an ankle. It would also be nice to be on fields softer than a parking lot. And after five games in one day, the last thing I want on the way home is the off-road adventure that is the exit road of the Hallmark Convention & Sports Complex.

It’s pretty clear that Chicago Magic has put a lot of time and attention into the tournament. It has the potential to be a really good tournament. But. . .until the BOMW starts paying referees same-day for the matches - like virtually every other tournament - I won’t consider going back. At that point, better fields and more adequate facilities would be merely a bonus.