And some people in this forum wonder why there is a shortage of good refs or any refs at all???
Soccer rowdiness means no season in '07
ALI ALBANNA, LACKAWANNA SOCCER PLAYER: "Don't make the younger kids pay for our mistakes."
By JANICE L. HABUDA
News Staff Reporter
11/16/2006 Rowdy and unsportsmanlike conduct by Lackawanna High School soccer players resulted in a "red card" for the 2007 season.
The School Board voted unanimously Wednesday night to suspend the varsity and junior varsity programs for a year; they face three years' probation when they resume. The modified soccer program, which involves younger players, is not affected.
"This was a heart-wrenching decision for us seven board members," said member Mike Sanders, "[but] you cannot act in an undisciplined manner at games. You cannot do that."
Many soccer players attended Wednesday's meeting to learn their fate, which was sealed after an Oct. 30 match against Akron. Game officials reported numerous serious offenses during the match, which escalated after Lackawanna lost its final game of the season to Akron, 3-2.
Akron players were spat upon and subjected to abusive language, according to reports filed with the Lackawanna School District. Some officials were pushed around as well as sworn at, and abuse was directed at Heidi A. Steckstor, the district's athletic director.
Head Coach Abdul Noman also was the target of profanities by his players.
Mark Butler, president of the Western New York Soccer Officials Association, wrote: "These kids are out of control and do not respect authority, including and most importantly, their own coach."
"Our Officials Board has serious concerns about referee safety at soccer [matches] involving Lackawanna regardless of whether they are at home or on the road," Butler continued. "In my opinion, a complete suspension of the soccer program may be in order. It certainly should not be allowed to continue under present conditions and supervision."
One of the officials wrote: "The Lackawanna team displayed the most disrespectful and unsporting gamesmanship I've seen in over 30 years."
While Noman, the coach, urged district officials to take action against some individuals, he was unhappy with Wednesday's wholesale action by the board.
"The decision . . . was an unfair decision," Noman said afterward. "A few players acted up; those should be punished."
But School Superintendent Paul G. Hashem said the district's investigation, which included obtaining statements from witnesses, determined that several players were involved.
Several people spoke on behalf of the soccer program before the School Board took action.
"I want to apologize on behalf of my teammates and myself" for the actions of Oct. 30, said Ali Albanna, who received a red card at the end of the game for calling an official a name. "Looking back at that day, I feel foolish and deeply regret it, and I am sure my teammates feel the same way."
Albanna urged the board not to penalize the junior varsity and modified soccer players.
"My teammates and I accept any punishment we get, but don't make the younger kids pay for our mistakes," he said.
Mohamed Saleh, director of the Lackawanna Islamic Mosque, appealed to the board to consider the importance of soccer in the young men's lives.
"I respect their decision," Saleh said afterward, "[but] the best solution would have been suspending some of the students. We don't agree with the solution."
U.K. Weekend Soccer Refs Blow Whistle on Abuse by Quitting Game
By Sam Sheringham
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Mick Blatchford spends his Sunday mornings being insulted by 22 men half his age.
``There are times when I think, `Do I need to come out here and have all this aggravation?''' the 59-year-old soccer referee said after finishing a game at London's Hackney Marshes, in which he had to caution a player for swearing at him and break up a 10- man brawl. ``But football is the love of my life.''
Blatchford, who works for a roadside assistance company, is one of a diminishing breed of Britons prepared to give up his weekends to run up and down muddy fields and be yelled at by players contesting his decisions. Only 1 percent of the population under age 35 wants to be a referee, enough for one official per 100 players, according to a survey by Barclays Plc, the main sponsor of England's top soccer league.
With fewer people taking up the whistle, England's 2.6 million amateur soccer and rugby players face having matches canceled. That jeopardizes the chances of uncovering the next David Beckham, former England soccer captain, or Jonny Wilkinson, who kicked England to its first Rugby World Cup title in 2003.
Disrespect from players and fans, the pressure of avoiding mistakes and low pay are deterring potential candidates, referees say. To stem the decline, soccer's Football Association started a program to help referees handle abuse, and the Rugby Football Union is considering paying officials for the first time.
``Locally, it's a massive, massive problem,'' said Howard Webb, 35, who officiates top soccer matches in the Premier League. ``Young refs get so much grief when they start that it puts them off. Ultimately, the lack of refs could have a negative effect on the whole game.''
Head-Butting Ban
Earlier this month, a 14-year-old player on a youth team in southwestern England was banned from playing for head-butting the referee during a game. League officials didn't identify the player because of his age.
London-based Barclays, Britain's third-largest bank by market value, quizzed 1,000 adults about referees as part of a 30 million-pound ($56 million) campaign to promote local sports. Officials from soccer, rugby and cricket have been touring the country, educating children about life as a referee.
In some areas, the Football Association estimates that 20 percent of amateur matches are played without a qualified official.
In Essex, where Beckham was first spotted playing for Ridgeway Rovers, the number of registered referees has dropped to 1,600, from more than 2,000 last year. A 120-club league in Rotherham, which was fully staffed five years ago, now has half the number it needs, meaning injured players and coaches have to don the referee's jersey.
Dead Ref
Ned Carabine, a 28-year-old London doctor, recalled the weekly struggle of tracking down a referee when he was captain of the Imperial College Medical School soccer team.
``It was a nightmare and often took days,'' he said. ``When they did turn up, they were invariably elderly. Once I phoned a referee's house to be informed that he had died of old age the week before.''
Some blame professional soccer for the decline. Swedish official Anders Frisk hung up his whistle last year after receiving death threats from fans of English champion Chelsea. Swiss referee Urs Meier asked for police protection after being bombarded with e-mails from angry England fans in 2004.
Players often make their displeasure obvious. Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney was ejected from a European match in September 2005 for sarcastically applauding a referee's decision.
``A lot of kids see Wayne Rooney as their idol, and when they see him doing that sort of stuff they might do it themselves,'' said Claus Lundekvam, a defender with Southampton in England's second-tier league. ``We all have a responsibility to respect the ref.''
Respect Campaign
The Football Association wants to recruit 10,000 referees a year, and is running programs to train women in the art of officiating. The association also has a ``Respect the Ref'' campaign to try to improve the behavior of fans and players.
While part-time soccer referees earn 10 to 30 pounds a game, the traditions of rugby -- which only allowed professionalism at the elite level in 1995 -- dictate that officials aren't paid.
The Rugby Football Union realizes this may have to change, especially after it unveiled plans on Oct. 3 to increase player participation by 25 percent in the next 10 years.
Paying referees is ``certainly something we've got under consideration,'' said Richard Glynne-Jones, the RFU's community referees' manager. ``It could be that with students and youngsters, some cash might persuade them to referee.''
Back at London's Hackney Marshes, 20-year-old Melissa Anglesea offers some hope as she patrols an encounter between two east London rivals. Forced to stop playing soccer by an injury, Anglesea officiates three matches a week while attending the London College of Fashion.
``I'm quite hard-skinned and I like the banter with the lads,'' she said. ``You've got to have a passion for the game to get up in the morning and come out here.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Sam Sheringham in London on at
ssheringham@bloomberg.net <mailto:ssheringham@bloomberg.net>
Last Updated: October 19, 2006 19:00 EDT
The hazardous world of refs
By JAKE THOMASES
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: October 24, 2006)
Every few minutes Tony Veronico heard the yelling from across the field. A father was bashing his calls and non-calls alike, assuring the referee of more than 20 years how little he knew about refereeing. It was stuff Veronico had heard every day since he first put whistle to lips in 1983. He ignored it.
At the game's conclusion, he shuffled toward midfield to meet his partner. Then, a pounding noise behind him.
"I looked over my shoulder and there was this parent rushing right at me. He was going at such a speed, I felt sure he was coming to attack me," he said.
Veronico took off running, too late to escape his pursuer. He felt a shove as the man caught up to him. Only his momentum saved him from being knocked to the ground.
When the other referee joined the fray, the man took off. A close call, Veronico thought. Could have been a lot worse. But he underestimated the depth of this man's hatred for him, a hatred bred from a handful of calls in an 80-minute high school soccer game.
Walking back to their cars, the officials were again confronted. This time the instigator had recruited four other parents, and together they hurled insults at them, "claiming we didn't know anything about the game and on and on and on." Under a hail of abuse, the pair made it to their cars without further physical incident.
Later Veronico received an apology letter from the student whose red card had likely initiated the vitriol. He accepted it and moved on. In retrospect, the Nyack resident said, he should have pressed charges. It's just that in all his years on the job, he'd never experienced anything like it. He was so flustered, he just wanted it over with. Two years later, it remains the worst example of spectator abuse he's gone through.
But it's not the only one. Hearing how biased and incompetent you are is a daily rite of passage for youth officials, even at the junior-varsity and modified levels. Parents and fans have intimate access to the soccer field or basketball court. A referee prowling the sideline may be 6 feet away from an angry line of parents. When they impugn his integrity, he hears every word of it. He may ignore it, but he hears it.
"I think it's becoming a big problem," said Dave Toomey, a 10-year soccer and 22-year basketball ref. "It almost seems like it's a rite of passage to attack officials. I don't know how to explain it. It's just a feeling that it's getting worse and worse."
Rich Leaf, head of Westchester soccer officials, said certain schools are routinely worse than others, though he declined to name them. He's working with those schools to stamp out that feeling of entitlement among spectators.
To varying degrees, though, it's a problem everywhere. There's the garden-variety criticism, stuff that comes out at 99 percent of games.
"You're missing a good game, ref!"
"They've been pushing us all day, ref, all day!"
"Call it both ways!"
Call it both ways? More like "call it my way." Refs know what people mean when they purport to be the only source of objectivity within 5 miles. No one's calling for fairness when a questionable call hands the ball to their team.
Clichéd sniping like this goes in one ear and out the other. If officials took it all to heart, they'd have a nervous breakdown within the first week of every season.
"Personally, I have a lot of leeway for spontaneous emotion," seven-year basketball, baseball, softball and soccer official Bob Nelan said.
No matter how spontaneous, he and others will not ignore vicious attacks, especially those that involve cursing. But it's not always as black-and-white as a four-letter word echoing in a gym. A wisecrack can become four or five, which become insults, which morph into a pattern of vilification as an audience member perceives more and more slights against his or her team. A person's words may not be horrendous in and of themselves, but when she's screaming them at the top of her lungs every 30 seconds, it's distracting at the very least.
It's up to the individual referee to draw the line. Handling the problem once he decides a spectator has crossed it is also at his discretion.
Nelan goes directly to the person and gives him or her a warning. Once the heckler is singled out, he said, embarrassment sinks in.
Fifteen-year ref Bob Mastropietro, on the other hand, never approaches the person. He'll point out the problem to the home coach and ask him or her to take care of it. If there's security present, a person can be removed from the premises.
"It's sad to see at high school games," Somers senior soccer player Amanda DaCosta said. "We're kids. To see other parents and our parents acting like that, it's not a good image."
One official described an incident four years ago where he asked a mother to leave an eighth-grade CYO game in Spring Valley for foul language. As he and his partner left the court, the woman's husband accosted them, irate about how they had insulted his wife. Though others held the father back, he managed to claw the referee's face. The ref filed assault charges, but the district attorney later dropped them.
That couple aside, most loud parents probably don't realize what they're doing. Going into an accountant's office and screaming about how she's adding everything wrong and how biased she is toward the IRS would get you arrested for harassment. For some reason, it's acceptable to berate referees as if they were on a medieval European gallows.
Fans may justify their actions in that the ref really did make a bad call or miss a foul.
"You're not going to make the calls 100 percent. I don't care who you are," Mastropietro said.
Anyone who watched the latest Super Bowl or NBA Finals knows how bad officials can be. And those guys were the best of the best, the ones chosen because of a proven track record of accuracy and fairness.
Varsity officials don't have the resources or manpower of pro crews. Some varsity soccer games have a single official keeping track of 22 players over a vast area. Missing calls is inevitable. So is making mistakes, which is less acceptable.
"There's a lot of inconsistency between the way one ref calls a game and another ref calls a game," said Joan Kantor, mother of Byram Hills varsity player Ellie Kantor. "That could be improved. But they work very hard."
Then there are battles over the interpretation of gray areas such as hand balls in soccer (not every ball that hits a hand is a hand ball, according to Veronico) or physical contact in other sports.
"A lot of the fans are not really that knowledgeable about the rules and technicalities, and yet they won't hesitate to start screaming and yelling despite the fact that they don't know what they're talking about," 20-year soccer referee Paul O'Connor said.
"What looks like a terrible push to Mary's mom may seem like a fair shoulder-to-shoulder to Susie's mom," Veronico said.
Veronico is chairman of the referee commission for the American Youth Soccer Organization in Westchester. He said his organization is desperate for more members, but retaining new ones, especially women and young men, has become increasingly difficult. The job isn't worth it to them if it means having their credibility questioned for two hours every day.
Toomey is considering ending his 22-year career for the same reason. The job's difficulty just isn't respected, he said.
His fifth-year colleague takes a softer stance.
"Deep down, I know that a lot of the parents and coaches and players appreciate what we do," Brad Levine said. "It's just hard to see sometimes."
KELLY: Being a referee is not easy
— Who’d be a ref?
It’s not every day someone pulls a gun on you — especially when you’re refereeing a soccer game.
And when you’re in the center, you expect to see plenty of shots on goal — but not ones fired from a weapon during a hot-tempered clash between rival teams.
These are experiences some of Indiana’s most-respected referees have encountered during their time in the middle.
It was during a Kentucky high school game some years ago when longtime referee and Floyds Knobs resident Bob Snook was confronted by an angry fan.
“He threatened me and we (the officials) had to be escorted out of the building,” Snook recalls.
His colleague, Heinz Pedolzky — who played for German giants Bayern Munich in his youth — witnessed a game where shots were fired.
“Before the Latino leagues were sanctioned by the USSF, they played at Floyds Fork,” he remembers. “They are very easy to referee usually. There were two games on a Sunday side by side and on the other field there was a foul close to the corner flag. Well, there were fists and everything. And with Latinos if there’s a little thing happening, you’re not dealing with 22 players — you’re worried about the spectators too. The next thing you know there was gunfire. Luckily, there were players on my field who helped us go the other way.”
Thankfully, recent years have been pretty incident free on local soccer fields and you have days when games are just a pleasure to officiate.
“I’ve done a couple of high school finals and some high-level college games. But some of the more memorable ones were like the one I did this year between Scottsburg and North Harrison, which was just a joy to do,” says Snook. “They weren’t skilled but they played so fairly. In fact, I wrote a letter to the coaches saying how much of a pleasure it was to be part of that game.”
Referees in southern Indiana are considered by their peers to be above average when compared to officials in other states. This can be attributed to the experience and enthusiasm of those who take charge of the games in this area.
Snook and Pedolzky are the two most veteran high school and college referees around and have the most intimate history with every referee association and youth soccer organization this side of the river.
Pedolzky, who has worked tirelessly in structuring the Southern Indiana Soccer Officials’ Association, says that in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, soccer just wasn’t organized here.
“If you were a referee, you did every game at all levels,” he says. “High school was not even recognized. There was nothing in Indiana and we did most high school games because there were no other refs around.”
In fact, at the time the referees’ list comprised of Heinz, Bob, Tom Lawrence, Kevin Harpring and Tom Berger.
Years later, he agrees with the belief that referees here are “a little bit above” the level of others as a whole.
“I think it has a lot to do with the commitment of a lot of referees here,” he says. “My goal is not to be the best referee. My goal is that everyone that we send to a game is at the same level. We all have our bad days, but it’s the commitment to become better.
“I don’t care if I do a U-12 game or college Division I. The only thing you need to know is that whatever game your doing, that’s the most important game to those players at that moment and you’ve got to give your best.”
So what is it like to referee games in this area?
Sometimes familiarity can breed contempt, they say, resulting in some high schools thinking certain referees “have it against them.” But nothing could be further from the truth, claims Snook.
“Heinz and I are probably a couple of the worst referees in this area,” Snook says facetiously. “Then we’ll go to other areas and people will just love us because they don’t know us. It’s not that you do a bad job, but every team in the area thinks you’re against them. And that’s unfortunate.”
A lot of the abuse referees suffer can be attributed to a lack of knowledge. Southern Indiana United’s referee assignor and soccer crazy mom, Gemma Newland, believes all soccer players — and their parents — should be required to take the referee course.
“The class teaches them what the rules really are — what the refs look for,” Newland says. “And I really think all parents should go, too. Then maybe they would understand what the ref is calling. Since the majority of parents didn’t grow up playing soccer, they only think they know the rules. Plus they think the referees should see everything. They do not understand that the center ref cannot see it at all.”
The referees Newland assigns are very young. She says that most of the officials she works with are under the age of 20.
“They forget that the center ref maybe only be two years older than their little darling,” she says. “We have lost some teen referees because parents forget that the ref is young and it is only a game. Mom or Dad become frustrated about the calls being made or the lack of calls being made, and start yelling at the refs. I have lost a few young refs who with a little more experience would have been excellent referees, but called to say they quit due to the parents yelling. I try to mentor the younger referees with an adult, when possible, to avoid this.”
But those that hang on in there do quite well.
“Many young people make good seasonal money working the game,” she said. “One young lady worked only Saturdays and made $340 for the season. It may not be much money to an adult, but to a teen, it is not so bad.”
If they work tournaments, the pay is better.
“I know of a pair of sisters who both made over $300 each on a weekend by working a tournament in Indianapolis,” Newland added. “These sisters are young kids — eighth and ninth graders. I also have a mother-daughter team that I depend on tremendously (Michelle and Maria Perkins).”
In fact there are several father-son or father-daughter teams in the area. One local family, the Spillers, have four referees in the family — Rick, Sarah, Natalie and William — while Gemma’s own family is ref mad, with her husband Bob and children Erica, Chris and Matt all officiators. Not even a fist in the eye could prevent her husband Bob from carrying on.
“He learned early on that it is a good idea, as a ref, not to step in between two Latino hot heads disputing a foul,” Newland jokes.
Despite the level of experience among some referees, all three agree there is a shortage of adult referees and they urge anyone with a love for the game to consider officiating.
“I wish there were more experienced referees in this area,” Newland says. “Because the refs are independent contractors, they can work for any club. All clubs pull from the same pool. When working with the under-20 crowd, I have to remember who drives and doesn’t drive, what team do they or their sibling play on, are they in marching band or dance or swimming or is the team they play on playing out of town?”
And if anyone needs any convincing as to why they should become a referee, Snook is here to answer your question.
“I still love being a part of the game,” he reveals. “Over the years, soccer has given me and my family so much. I have been blessed with the friends made and the experiences I have lived at so many levels. I am very proud in the growth of the sport in this area. But the real pleasure is seeing the very young kids enjoying the game.”
Want to be a ref?
For those interested in becoming a referee, contact Snook at
r.snook@worldnet.att.net or at 812–923-9696 or Newland at [Email]gemma.nwl@sbcglobal.net.[/Email]
There is a new referees’ class being offered from Jan. 12-14, 2007 at Mt. Tabor Elementary School in New Albany. For further info and to register, go to
www.indref.com.
