I've been following this thread quietly for a bit and thought I'd weigh in briefly from a coach's perspective, both in the high school and club arenas. I first want to support what has been said before in that we need to help cultivate great officials, not just criticize. There are plenty of great examples and role models out there, and here, from my perspective, are the traits that I admire in an official.
1. PLAYER SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT. I'm all for letting the players decide the game on the field, and soccer is a contact sport. To pull a quote from Days of Thunder, "Rubbin' is racin'." The officials I admire most know the difference between "rubbin'" and dangerous play and are quick to draw the distinction with their whistles. They understand that yellow cards when they are deserved earlier in the game can save red cards later, and that nobody wants to discover the line between playing hard and playing recklessly while someone is being carried off the field.
2. Consistency is crucial. The best officials I know call the game the same way in the first minute as in the last, 1-1 or 10-0, regardless of what color jerseys are involved or what happened five minutes ago. We don't expect every official to call the game exactly the same way, any more than we expect every teacher to teach the same subject exactly the same way. There is a certain amount of professional subjectivity that comes with the job and should be expected. But we teach our players the importance of adapting their play to the game conditions--the strengths, weaknesses, and style of play of the other team, the field conditions, the weather, our own fitness, injuries, etc. The officials' style is one of the game conditions that players need to recognize and adapt to, and as long as it is consistent then players can learn quickly to operate under each official's set of expectations. Inconsistent calling, even when it's "make-up calls" for something earlier, causes confusion and frustration on the part of players who are trying to recognize and adapt to the conditions.
3. Be confident, be professional, but don't take yourself TOO seriously. The officials I admire recognize that every coach and every official, no matter how experienced, is capable of making errors. Two of the most memorable conversations I've had with officials (after the game was over and handshakes were exchanged) ended in "Wow, you're right...I was really off-base on that one." In one instance that sentence came from the official; in the other it came from me. Once we accept fallibility in others AND in ourselves, we can work on doing it BETTER rather than getting mad over lack of perfection. As far as someone putting himself above accepting evaluation because he's "been doing it for 25 years" or so, just remember--just because you've been doing it for a long time, that's no guarantee you've been doing it right. Heck, I know people who have been thinking their whole lives, and they're still idiots.
4. Contrary to what has been stated repeatedly here, the best officials recognize that what takes place on the field is NOT "just a game." Done right, sports are so much more than that. We talk to our players about passion, about commitment, about sacrifice, about team over individuality, about the realities of sportsmanship, not just the word. We ask them--and they choose--to make decisions about what is important to them...about what they will invest in, often at the sacrifice of other things. We ask them to learn lessons within the sport about how to treat others, how they should expect to be treated, and most importantly how to respond to the way they are treated. We try to teach things within the game that we hope will be carried far off the pitch and far beyond youth. And if we as adults are truly invested, we ask all of those things of ourselves as well as our players.
If, after all of that, we can dismiss what happens on the field as unimportant, as inconsequential, as "just a game"...then I say we have failed in our most important tasks. The best people I know recognize that, and they give the game their best because they do realize that in the bigger picture, it's not "just" a game.
