Bye Week

I took a self-imposed break in the Fall Schedule last weekend.  Well, there were no regular season games, but THREE big tournaments that, as usual, were sending constant email blasts looking for refs.

Side question to other refs - does your area have sufficient refs?  Reading other referee blogs, it's tough to tell.  Granted, the games available are generally youth games, but I receive last minute requests for Adult Amateur refs too.

The good, the bad, and you know the rest

I'll start with the BAD, go to the UGLY, then conclude with the GOOD:

• BAD:  I had a U-14 P1 Girls' game.  2nd minute into the game, Yellow coach complains I missed a handling inside the penalty area.  I had a decent angle, saw nothing.  No signal from my A/R (opposite site - alleged handling was in my quadrant).  More importantly, no one from the Yellow team screamed "hand ball sir!" (yes, we usually get plenty of 'help' from the players on the field with those calls).  So all I said to the coach is "didn't see it sir".  HE JUST WOULDN'T let it go.  10 min later I do call a handling and he says "well at least *they* got their handling."  I also had one crazy 5 min stretch in the 2nd half where there were many almost fouls, but I didn't call any.  Also had one mysterious downed girl that I didn't see the cause because I did not remember my previous lesson - take an extra second looking behind the play before moving on.

OK so my two lessons here:  Ask, Tell, Remove!  Also, don't forget to call fouls - even if they are trifling - to keep the temperature down.  So at the end the coach felt like we conspired against his team.  I was done with him at that point, but I did not REMOVE him (I should have).  The sad thing is I worked with 2 Grade 8 HS refs who both have potential to really progress as refs.  They both thought I did a great job, and both thought the coach was an *sshole.  So congrats coach.  Not only are you ignorant, but your actions cause other young refs to think "why bother."  If we see each other again and you start, you won't finish.

All wet

You have to live along the Colorado Front Range to understand that weather that is 'routine' along the East Coast (namely, steady rain) or in Cascadia doesn't happen too often here.  Well Mother Nature conspired to do just that, give us a light to moderate rain right after my Fr/Soph HS game started this past Wednesday.  Multiple weird things happened.

• It started raining 5 min after we started the game.  Rapidly became moderate in nature, then alternated between light and moderate.  Of course, I had my trusty garbage bag (we all do, right?) INSIDE my gear bag.  Lots of good that did.  Managed to get a chance to get it OVER my gear bag during a break after a goal.

Initial Chill of Autumn

Well after the hottest August in Denver history (I love how the weather folks make that sound.  Um, weather 'history' goes back to the late 1800s and if you consider the relocation of the official station, it's even less than that, but anyway...), we finally had some good soccer weather this past weekend.  So onto the good stuff.

• As warned, only had two Prez Cup games.  Ran CR on a U-13 Boys game.  Had one situation where there was going to be a footrace for a through ball, so the Yellow Defender made a strong shoulder challenge (before the ball) on the Blue Attacker and knocked the attacker down (although not maliciously).  Long whistle from me.  Yellow Defender kept going - no argument from him.  Thought about a booking for a 'tactical' challenge, but score was already 2-0 in favor of Blue, game temperature was comfortable, and didn't think the game needed the card.  So I kept it in my pocket.  No arguments from anyone, and my ARs thought I made the correct move.  U-14 and up I would have definitely issued the card.  There's no definition in the Laws for a 'tactical' challenge - we just use it for game management.  Am I doing the game disservice by not issuing the card to a U-13 player?

Spring Finals

Well our dryer than normal Spring has permitted the following to wrap up this past week, on schedule:

• Girls HS.  Post Season JV tournament.  Had a doubleheader in the 'consolation' bracket on Friday.  Very nearly issued a yellow card to a girl who didn't like the fact I saw her push with both arms the opposing girl.  I just said "don't argue with me!" and she got the message.  Turned out she was given a red card at the beginning of the tournament for dissent.  Otherwise, the soccer was pretty good, with both games - that only counted for pride - reasonably well played.

• Spring Regular Season.  Well almost.  Got some money for nothing (that would be a no-show) and an uneventful U-13 girls' game.

• State and President's Cup.  My U-16 boys game was the conclusion of group play.  In other words, it was meaningless in the standings.  Got to flash some yellow, teach a few others the fine art of dissent, but always felt like I was in 'control' of the game.

Oh but the U-15 Finals.  It would not be President's Cup without some controversy, and this was no different.

Ironman

No I am not participating in any triathlon.  I'm not a runner. :)

In my context, "Ironman" is what we call running a JV / Level 3 game all by yourself.  For those games, we generally run dual refs, but for some reason we were really short on HS refs last week.  I was surprised we were so short on HS refs considering there have been very few weather related cancellations.  I could understand if the schedules stacked up due to a lot of makeups due to rain or snow outs, but that hasn't happened this Spring.

NOTE:  We never run Varsity as an "Ironman."  At worst case, we'll run dual refs as opposed to double dual (i.e. 3 refs).

Offside or not offside. That is the question.

Monday:  First, I'm going to whine about my knees.  OUCH.  They are killing me.  I am a mtn biker and skier, not a runner.  I have not had a good chance to train my legs since my cold in early March and the subsequent Spring Cup.  So I go week to week with some ailment.  Today, both my knees are killing me.  I hobbled through Continental's Houston hub today, which I think requires the most walking of any major airport in the US and has the least amount of moving walkways.  Maybe except for O'Hare, if you ever have the fortune of going from gate C23 to F11.

OK Soccer!  I had two HS games (one JV, one Level 3) and 3 President's Cup games this week.

Back in High School

As I mentioned, I had my first two HS games this past Tuesday.  The games were JV and Grade 3 (generally frosh/soph) games.  So I get to the HS and the first thing I notice is, damn I am old.  OK more seriously, I notice the home team is wearing Gold and the visitors Black, which, coincidentally, is the only shirt colors I have.  The other Side Ref (that's what we're called in the Dual system) happens to be the same dude that was an AR in my first USSF game.  That's way cool because he is a HS coach and has run HS games, so he knows the ropes and, more importantly, helped me with expectations.  Also, he had an extra red jersey.  So on went the red jerseys - problem solved.

Put in the HS brain

Well this past weekend I had my first double no-show.  That's right, I show up to the field at 8:30 in the morning (30 min before game) and there isn't a soul around.  I double check my assignment, field location, then finally call the Assignor.  "You still get paid, you just have to note the double no-show in your report."  So I did.  The 2nd game (U-10 F Option 1) was played on time.  In Colorado, some groups only pay for a CR in the younger games (U-10 and under).  So you have to get two parent volunteers.  Some have reffed or played in the past, others...well...just tell me the direction the ball is supposed to go.  The key is managing coach's expectations on what will and won't be called by the AR.  Anyway, the U-10 F game went off without a hitch - and with the shorter field and 8v8 was easy on my legs.

Karma? Or Murphy's Law

So on Sunday I went up to a turf field at a local HS (the one my kids will likely attend).  I did some sprinting and some running, mostly to break in my ref shoes.  I felt like I was in...well...mediocre shape.  With a week before the games, I could focus on aerobics and be in sufficient shape for Saturday's games (the Friday afternoon AR game will not tax me aerobically).

Well that was the plan.  Then Monday night came and I developed this rough cough.  I was planning on getting up early on Tuesday to workout, but 5:30 came around and no dice.  I had ZERO energy.  Long story short I finally went to the doctor today.  I certainly have a bug, so now I have some antibiotics to fight said bug and some codeine-laced cough syrup so I can actually sleep w/o hacking out a lung.

My aerobic conditioning is all shot to hell, which does not make me a happy camper.  The doc said I should see improvement Fri and should be 'better' by the weekend, although I may be hacking out a lung at times.  Great.

I take pride in my work and I feel sorry for the kids that due to my cold, I'm likely to lag the play and not be in good position.  I'll just have to save my energy, bring as many of the energy drinks I can handle, and hope my ARs can pick up the slack.

They are still begging for refs for the weekend, so I accepted a 1p U-11 Boys Game as an AR on Sunday.  I may bring my son to this game since if he makes the competitive team next Fall this is the competition he will see.

I also accepted my first JV Soccer game which will require a lot of running, but that's a few weeks away, plenty of time for me to get into shape and review the difference in calling a USSF game vs CHSSA/HSSO game.