SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums SCHSSCA Officiating Evaluations???

I agree that 2 refs are not enough, how much would it cost a school to add another ref per game? Would it help at all if each home team was required to have some type of line judge with flags for each side of the field like there was in classic (at least from what i can remember there was)? That would allow for the refs not to be restricted so much to the sides of the field.

My response to CB1 would be this- more people want to officiate high school basketball and since it is a more popular sport than soccer (at least in AD's eyes) then they are willing to put more money into the officials section of the basketball budget thus making the pay higher. That may or may not be the case, it is only a suggestion.

My only caution with ref evals would be NOT to fill them out in the heat of the moment. Many times playing, and now coaching, I seriously questioned a call, but when I saw the video, I saw that the ref made the right call whether by knowledge or luck. I think most teams at the high school level have one or two scorekeepers or managers for their team. Why not assign one of them or a suspended player or a hurt player to video? The coach could then make notes about questionable calls and then review the video after the game. This would not be a time consuming process b/c the coach could watch specific sections of a game or specific calls. This is an idea more to give a coach time to cool off and objectivly rate the quality of a referee. Yes, we all want to win but if a ref makes a call that is right and we lose b/c of it, he is still a good ref.

I think everyone that has posted a reply to this thread has some validity to what they say. As a player/coach for over 30 years, I have experienced great and horrendous officiating at every level of this sport. I think it is important to remember that the majority of our HS ref's have never played before and are doing the BEST job they can with the limited training they have had. Coaches and players I know how frustrating it can be. Parents, I don't want to hear any of you criticize an official. If you are not happy about the officials, do something about it. Become a ref. If you are not part of the solution, you're part of the problem! The obvious problem is the lack of knowledgable people, that have played before who want to ref. This is because it is a thankless , low paying job.Every ref that is working this year, whether you think they are competent or not, should be thanked just for doing it! The evaluation is aa good idea and I think most ref's would agree. What do we do with the ref's that are continually poorly evaluated? We might be down to one ref per game.

I still believe that we should have some sort of method of evaluating officials during the season. Too often they are allowed to critique coaches/players, but we have no way of regulating their abilities.

The "bigger than the game" attitude is not becoming of several of the officials that I have dealt with and often detracts from the match itself. On the whole, I have had very good officiating this year, but when you run across that "I'm the game" official, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

On another note, I hope that more ex-high school soccer players as well as ex-collegiate players would consider giving back to the game by becoming prep soccer officials. We as coaches should encourage our former players and graduating players to consider moving on in the game as officials to better the stock of officials in our respective areas.

You hit the nail on the head in your last paragraph. Officiating is not going to improve until more people get into it. What is discouraging is for a young official to get started, and then have coaches and fans howling at him the whole game. I was pleased to see a couple of obviously young officials calling one of my son's games recently. I was also glad to see the fans and coaches lay off of them when they made a questionable call. We all need to accept the fact that officials are fallible, but are the only ones there that have no vested interest in the outcome of the game.

Kevin,
Why do you feel that coaches, with NO referee training, and NO proof that they understand the rules, need to "regulate" the referees?
Sounds to me that you are the one with the "Bigger than the game" attitude, wanting to have control over every aspect of it. If you want what is best for the game, you would push for independent TRAINED assessors to evaluate referees, not a biased coach looking for revenge.
I've never seen you coach, so I can't speak to your particular qualifications, but you need to look around carefully before you claim that a majority of coaches are knowledgeable enough to assess referees. A good number of coaches prove they are NOT qualified by their reactions and outburts during their games. As a referee, I am all for independent assessments to improve my abilities, just like USSF does. Your suggestion smells a whole lot like good ol' boy politics. Be careful what you wish for, you will certainly regret the actual result.

I agree with a fan. I officiate football and basketball, which have a rating system that does not include coaches evaluations. A system similar to that would work, however, until there are many more referees, it really doesn't matter what rating system you use. As it stands now, all available officials are needed for varsity games. We do not have the luxury of only assigning the best to do varsity games.

We set referees up for failure with the two man system. Most of what happens in the middle is missed, and offsides is a difficult call as well. I do my best to give them the benefit of the doubt, being a ref myself. I think on the whole most do the best they can.

What dismays me the most is the lack of sportmanship displayed toward the ref. Win or lose, good call or bad call the referee should be thanked for reffing the game with a handshake. I see far to many coaches who blame every loss on the referee and then the players have that easy out as well. Referees do occassionally cost you a game; and there are referees who shouldn't be working. The officals should have a senior referee who rates these officials two or three times a year to insure the level of competency is where it should be. If not retrain or get rid of the referee.

I feel if we let coaches do it we run the risk of teams chosing their referees for their games. Just my thoughts.

I agree, and I believe most soccer officials will agree, the two man system is not the best. But again, until more officials are recruited and fewer are run off by overly zealous coaches and fans, that's what we are stuck with.

Yes, the two man system is the worst situation, right? Wrong, it is the middle of the road. I have seen a couple of games, and coached in one, where we had one referee and students or assistant coaches running the lines.

What bothers me more than this is that it seems that there are a lot of people who post who think the referee does no wrong and no matter what they call or don't call, it is automatically the right call and there is no room for discussion. It also seems that the people who think that the referee does no worng, are the referees who post. I enjoy referee input and we need to include referees and their opinions in disussions but face it and be honest, referees make mistakes and sometimes their continuous mistakes do sway the momentum or style of the game significantly to one team, and they suffer no consequences. If a coach or a player makes a bad decision, they could lose the game or give up a goal. If a coach makes too many mistakes, he is replaced or fired (depending on the level). If a player makes too many mistakes, he is benched or cut. What happenes to a referee who makes too many mistakes? Essentially nothing. To my knowledge, he is never shown a video tape and told, "this should have been a foul" or "this should have been advantage", etc that would help that referee or linesman improve. If I am not mistaken, there is some type of basic evaluation system in place by an independent person (or maybe that is club) and we have been status quo for many years now. We are not suggesting evaluations to run off every ref, which is what the majority of referees feel we want to do and we do not expect them to be Premiership referees. But we do expect them to enforce rules as they are stated, protect players (do not be afraid to use cards or send players off) and take constructive criticism when it is given in an arena like this. We are after evaluations to improve poor officials by identifying them and then giving them extra help and rewarding the best officials by identifying them and giving them playoff and championship games. This referee eval list would be kept confidential so that coaches would not have access to it. This would prevent players or coaches from telling the team "ok, this is the best/worst ref in the state".

Also, why not use the evaluation system to award a "Referee of the Year"? We have a "Coach of the Year" for each division and numerous ways for players to be recognized so why not recognize and reward the best referees with a plaque or something?!?! Announce it at North/South weekend or the Top 50/30 Banquet or something like that.