SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Girls Varsity Soccer 3d ref please

TK—

In my early years of coaching, which also were the early years of the soccer programs, I often turned to my fans/parents and asked for them to back off, not coach or ref—and to inform them "That was not a foul," especially when one was called in our favor.

I think coaches can have positive and direct influences on fans/parents.

Wooooo,
I just had an idea.
Each team is required to have a one evening seiminar for the parents with the team and coaches on the field. Make it a Sat evening before the season starts. Combine it with the team meeting. Show what is a foul (and not), explain off sides, dangerous kick, direct, indirect, yellow, red, as much as you can, have a local ref come out and help. Even expalin game stratigy, where we are with the program, goals,

The yellers...they have yelled since 5 year old rec soccer. I have explained as a ref and coach the rules and offside law and even given handouts. The kids learned and after 10 years understand very well. These individuals just want to yell/vent. Even if the refs were perfect and the players committed no fouls, I believe the yelling would be even more acidic.
I have been summonded to the stands a few times to "explain something to me". Once it was a case of a delayed call I was asked that I "should make the delayed call earlier". To me thats it in a nutshell, refs please advance to 10 seconds in the future and stop the foul so as to stop the injury. If you really wish to ensure safety you will appoint Stephen Hawking as the Big Ref Boss.

[Okay -- sarcasm and trying to be funny switched fully "off."]

I have a bias toward wanting to fix a problem that's been raised, particularly if it is raised repeatedly with no apparent movement toward a solution. There are several issues that I've heard about repeatedly in the years I've paid attention to youth soccer with respect to referees:

• We need money to pay for three referees in high school soccer.
  
• We need three referees in high school soccer [the original post by "Farkus" that got us here.]
  
• We need better (higher quality) referees in high school soccer.
  
• We need more referees in the pool for high school soccer.
  
• We need parents to be more respectful/quieter so we can get more referees in high school soccer.
  

Now, I don't expect that the answer is trivial or it would have been solved already. In terms of the "quality" of referees, I've always thought that this was like everything else -- there are some great ones, some bad ones, and most are good. I've seen relatively few poor referees but as some coaches complained about "mechanical whistle guy" one can make a big impression. But a couple of bad ones doesn't really reflect on the group as a whole -- so I don't think quality is really the issue.

The parents issue gets raised every year and while I don't have a practical (perhaps an ideological, but not a practical) problem enforcing a noise ban, it just doesn't feel like it's the "root" of the problem. Maybe it is -- maybe girls high school soccer parents yell more than high school football, basketball, baseball, or whatever parents -- but it just doesn't feel like a noise ban is going to resolve the oft-raised "we need 3 referees" issue. I absolutely stand ready to be corrected and instructed on the issue, however.

That leaves the following questions. Do we really need three referees in high school soccer to increase the quality and/or decrease the risk of injury? If no, then we can go back to complaining about other things - parents yelling, great teams not ranked, which upstate team will dominate the state in 2009-2010, kick-ball versus long-ball, or whatever. If yes, then the question is what do we do to make it happen. There are two relatively competing theories dueling for primacy of a "root cause": there aren't enough referees or there are enough referees but there isn't enough money. I agree with someone who said that they thought parents would pay to increase quality and/or decrease the risk of injury -- that's why I asked Coach P the questions I did. I think that the money thing can be solved.

If it has to do more with the number of referees in the pool, then the problem has to be attacked in another direction -- in other words, if everyone is trying to get three referees and can't because of the sheer availability, then you have a more difficult (but still potentially solvable) problem.

Anyone want to go on record as to whether (a) we really need three referees to increase the quality of calls and/or decrease injury and then for extra credit if the answer to (a) is "yes" then (b) is the primary root cause a lack of money or a too small referee pool?

Regarding the SIZE of the referee pool--- It seems a logical solution to me to try and recruit some of the 'unemployed' referees that are around during soccer season. Where do all the basketball officials go once basketball season is over? I'm sure there is a list of them somewhere just as there is in soccer. A little more soccer specific training and certification, then an 'apprenticeship' period as an AR before stepping on the field as a CR.

Simple? Probably not. Possible? I don't see why not.

tk

Another possible (partial) solution to the availability issue would be for teams to schedule matches on lower-demand nights to ease the number of officials required at the same time.

Most schools, at least the ones I'm familiar with, are on a default Tuesday/Friday game schedule, which puts a lot of demand on those two nights, leaving a lot of officials with little to do on the other three weeknights. Many teams alternate Thursday and Friday night matches for a number of reasons, which eases the demand at the end of the week, but almost everyone seems to play on Tuesday regardless, which makes it the hardest day to get three officials for everyone who wants them.

If schools could agree to stagger the game schedules a bit more--maybe alternate weeks with Tuesday/Thursday and Wednesday/Friday matches, for example, it would lower the number of officials needed on the same night and allow a smaller pool to still serve a greater number of teams in a week. I've been told that scheduling makeup games on Wednesday is easy, because there is almost certainly no shortage of officials...it's the least-used night of the week. I know that few people like to play on Monday nights...coming off a weekend without a practice to re-focus can sometimes result in some pretty sub-par perfornamces...but we could make better use of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to spread games out and reduce single-night demand.

My advice at any rate...if you have a game you feel you really, REALLY need three officials for and aren't sure of getting them, try to reschedule it for a Wednesday night...that's your best bet.

Hope these figures also help to answer the question, "Why do I have to pay to watch my daughter/son play?" At a standard $6 double-header match with a 3-man system, it takes 43 tickets just to break even with the officials alone. Add in the costs of transportation to away matches when we aren't taking in gate and concessions, plus equipment, uniforms, and other fees, and you can see why soccer teams need all the support they can get to stay above the red line.