SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Where are the refs?

fair enough..either weeken or weekday is good, but Hurst I was not thinking aboout the actual college players I was thinking about the ones that are no longer playing after HS, they would be available. tax free 20/hr beat McDonalds all day long.

Weekday games make sense if they're (at least reasonably) local. Charleston kids would have a hard time playing a night game in Greenville on a Wednesday night and make it back for school the next day.

Weekday games would not work for parents, exactly because of homework/school issues. And in the spring you have HS games during the week. But maybe parents would go for it if not much travel involved. That way they would have a free Sat. without soccer every now and then.

To have rules about officials not being able to talk to players, coaches and parents is ridiculous. Believe me, most refs I know would love to go through a game without having to speak to any of them. Unfortunately, because a lot of them don't know how to behave in public it becomes a necessity. Officials only react to things that are done or said to them where coaches and parents are concerned. If they would keep their mouths shut it wouldn't be an issue.
But the title of this thread says it all. We are losing officials because of obnoxious behavior from parents, coaches and players. Deal with that appropriately and it will improve. But to suggest that they just take it without responding if it is out of hand is stupid, in view of the fact that one of the reasons for the shortage is that very thing.

futbol......agree, ex-HS and ex-club players in college would be prime candidates.

40......It's great that your daughter is "giving back" and enjoying herself and making a few bucks, but at 14, her time would be better spent training and playing. We should have enough people out there to do the job so that we don't have to rely on using 14 year old girls.

Bazza......good to hear from you, where you been? Never got your comments on this tragedy!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s34w8k00ifk

Interesting article: How to Keep Fans Out of Your Head

Coach P...excellent article... it should be a requirement at all referee courses.

Bazza...unfortunately I routinely run into "what I mean and what I wrote may not be the same thing".

What do I mean by not talking???

I find that historically the game starts getting out of hand, when the referee starts focusing in things other than the game. This leads to talking to fans, coaches, players. I especially do not like trying to explain the call, because "the call" was not what you liked, "the explanation" will also be not what you liked. Therefore the call is automatically wrong and the ref is a moron.

The referee needs to keep control, I agree... for the better of the game. A smart aleck remark (as in the article) will invite a smart aleck remark back...etc.

At any DECIDED game whether you make all the right calls or all the wrong calls, 50% of the people will leave happy. It has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with the outcome. Therefore, call what you see, stay in shape, stay up-to-date on the rules and do the best you can.

My last word on this.... after refereeing 2-3 games in a row, you get tired both physically and mentally. You are expected to stay focused in the very next game and make all the right calls. Not easy to do, as in the article, keep asking why you are there.

Great discussion ... thanks for participating...

I disagree with the comment about ref's not talking to parents. Last February my daughter was playing a torunament in Savannah. Before the match the ref came over to the sidelines introduced himself to the parents and asked if we had any questions before we got started. He was very nice and welcomed our team to the area and told a couple of jokes. He said that if there were any bad calls that it would be the line judge Ralph's fault. He did the same thing with the other team. It was a very close match and very physical, but the parents stayed absolutely quiet except for kidding about Ralph's bad calls occassionally. He had personalized himself to the parents and no one wanted to be rude to someone they now knew. At half time he even came over and asked if we had any questions. One parent asked about an off sides call. He explained the rule and why the player was not off sides. He again reminded all of us that if there were anymore bad calls that it would be Ralph's fault. Ralph played his part perfectly - he just smiled and nodded. It was a wonderful experience and as you can tell has stuck with me.

hurst i think training 3 days a week and playing games on the weekend is enough.im glad she is able to make a little money while being involved in something she loves.
maybe a few of you that like looking up stats can compare how many teams on all levels are in the state now compared to 3 or 5 years ago.maybe its not that we have less refs but we have out grown them.

bamr1 i think we had the same ref a few weeks ago down there.he was an older man and no one ever said anything about his calls.he joked with the parents from both sides the whole game.

I think one of the main problems is that more than half of the league games are played in Columbia. Not just Columbia area teams, but Coastal teams and Piedmont teams meeting in Columbia. Also, the games are now being scheduled by the coaches so that there is no one looking at the schedule from an overall perspective and spreading out the games.