Seasonal Review

This past soccer season has been quite a long one. I have done a wide variety of games ranging from not so exciting slow freshmen games to intense Big Ten games. There were a lot of rough frustrating games but also a number of games that went smoothly. For the 2010/2011 fall season, I have done 66 games total. All those games in about a month and a half. 66 games, for those who can't do the math, is at least 1 game every day of the week. Sunday through Saturday. My schedule for a normal day over the last couple months was, wake up at 7AM, go to work, get off at 3pm, then go drive to a school somewhere and do a game or two and get home between 7 and 9pm. After I would get home I would simply eat and then go to bed and wake up and do it all over again. During all these games, I did plenty of high school games and during almost all of these games I had to issue either a caution (yellow card) or an ejection (red card). All together I've issued 66 cards. 59 cautions 7 ejections. Hands down, I have given the more cards in this season than in all the years I've been a high school referee combined. The past 2 years I've only given about 9 cards, cautions and ejections together. About 2/3 of the cards I issued were for dissent(objecting by word or action to any decision made by the official). The other third was for stupid fouls/incidental language. The ejections ranged from foul language directed towards another player or myself to denying obvious goal scoring opportunities and retaliation/striking an opponent. I don't know what it was about this season but all these teams had players that didn't know how to not whine or complain or keep their mouths shut about something. They all tended to say something stupid which they ended up paying for. The best advice I can give to any soccer player that reads this, and I'm sure many refs would agree with me, don't argue with the referee. Even if it is a "bad" call, all you are doing is getting on his nerves and risking getting a card. The last high school game I did, I had a player come up to me after the game and tell me that I was terrible. I promptly proceeded to give him a caution. The player didn't care if he got the card because his season was over, it was the regional final for his team and his team lost. Regardless, there is no reason to do that which is why I carded him, and for the hope that when his school see's the report I wrote, will take action towards that player with a detention or some kind of punishment. 

Being a referee, especially a soccer referee is a very difficult and stressful job. Unlike other sports we do not have the ability review plays/goals. Every call, every no call, every offsides, every goal is all called or not called on the fly and once it we make our decision we cannot go back and review what happened to make the right call. One of the things that makes me laugh, and I'm not the only one, are the parents. They all think that they know every single rule of soccer. They think they know what offsides is or what a foul is (everything is a foul when they're son/daughter falls over and loses the ball), or what a handball is. According to the parents, if the hand and the ball touch at ALL, it is a handball one hundred percent no questions asked, and if it is not called then the ref is horrible and needs to go back and look at the rule book. Every game I do, I notice a lot of things when it comes to players arguing calls made by an official. All of my referee friends have noticed this as well. The pattern is very noticeable. It all starts with the parents then moves to the coaches and then finally the players. By the time it reaches the players, we, as officials, are in trouble because we have to deal with it. Not just from the players but from coaches and parents as well. There are the few exceptions, coaches don't allow they're players to say anything to the ref except good game or ask for 10 yards. I have a lot of respect for those coaches. They make my job much easier. But for all the other teams that have the players/coaches/parents that get out of hand and no one does anything to stop them, they make my job hectic. It's those games that I seriously question if I want to continue being an official. On average, soccer officials have the youngest age for referees quitting. Most referees start when they are about 13 or 14 years old and they start with the little kids doing U8 or U10 games. The parents and even coaches for these teams go yell at these young referees like they are paid for it. They verbally assault these kids and the kids end up quitting because they can't deal with the parents. I've seen this happen before. Its quite sad. The parents are being less mature than the kid refing the game. It truly is difficult being a young referee. I have experienced it first hand and still experience it to this day. Most parents and coaches don't see me as an adult. But because I look young, younger than I actually am, they think that I am just a kid and have no idea what I am doing. They think they can walk all over me and I won't do anything about it. Yes, all referees get yelled at but the fact of the matter is I get the hard end of the stick. When I get these games where parents and coaches and players yell at me I want to just quit and walk away not to look back ever. But I never do quit. I stay because of all the other young referees that look up to me. If they see me quit then why would they stay in the game? 1 Timothy 4:12 "Don't let anyone look down upon you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, life, love and in faith." The verse gives me strength to keep going, not only through the hard games, but through much of my life. Which is a story for another blog.

To wrap things up, I have learned a great deal from this past season. For instance, I need to not do as many games. Yes I am young but even the young have limits and need breaks. My body needs a few days here and there to recover and so does my mind. I may be able to do the games even if my body is sore but I cannot perform to my fullest ability if my mind is not in the game because I am exhausted. I need to make time for myself where I can just do what I want and nothing else. A time where I can just be. Overall, I am happy that this soccer season is over but at the same time, I am looking forward to next season and can't wait to start.