What Does It Take To Be a Soccer Referee?

Last Sunday I took my annual referee recertification course, a requirement for referees like me to maintain our United States Soccer Federation badge. Without this certification I would not be in the state referee data base and would not get game assignments. I don't know how many parents or coaches know what is involved in maintaining a referee certification. Here is a summary.

Every year Mass State Referee Committee holds recertification classes in various cities throughout the state. As a referee you log in to your account to register for the class that is closest and is at a convenient time. They're held on the weekends and typically run from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Once you register for a course a link becomes available online where you log in to take a 50 question test. To pass you need to get 75% correct or 38 questions. If you fail you can take the test again as many times as you want. (Last year it took me two tries. This year I got 92% on the first try.) When you pass the test the referee web site then lets you print a letter proving that you passed. This letter is presented to the instructor at the end of the class.

The classes are taught by referees who have officiated for many years. This year the instructor for my class had been involved for 20 years and refereed high level matches. In years past the first thing the instructors would do is hand out another test consisting of the questions that were missed the most often. After taking the shorter version of the test again the instructor picks participants to give their answer and their explanation for their choice, after which the instructor gives the right answer. This year was different in that we skipped this step.

We did cover offside, a call that many parents, players and coaches do not understand. We watched about a dozen videos of simulated match conditions then voted if we thought the attacking player was offside. The instructor then showed the clip again in super slow-mo. We got many of the calls right but also missed a bunch too. The point being made: our brains deal with motion of objects by skipping ahead in anticipation. Sometimes our brains get it wrong.

We then discussed the process of completing game reports. After every game referees are supposed to fill one out, usually online. In 99% of the games it's just a matter of recording the scores at half time and at the end, the field conditions and the weather. However, if there was a serious situation involving disciplinary action such as a red card the game report calls for a detailed description of what happened without getting polemical. It's "just the facts, ma'am." Game reports can become important if the offenders need to be sanctioned or if they challenge the referee's decision. In extreme cases the game report can become a legal document if the courts get involved. Therefore the referee needs to be factual and accurate!

I won't go into all of the rest of our agenda other than an exercise in which we reviewed an actual game video of a youth soccer game in which two players got tangled up and fell down. The first player to get up stepped onto the thigh of the opposing player who was still down. We discussed what decision the referee should have made. (In this case it was a red card which means the player is ejected from the match and can't be substituted, causing her team to play one player down.)

I hope this description shows what is involved in being a referee! If only coaches had to go through the same kind of certification! Naturally this is unrealistic because coaches at the youth soccer level are parent volunteers. I know referees can take a lot of heat while working. I know there might be lazy referees out there but in my experience the ones I've dealt with all want to do aa good job and not influence the outcome of games with bad calls. So, anyone out there who reads this and has a kid playing soccer, I hope you now have a better idea of what those nameless officials running with the kids have to go through in order to be out there.

Change in Scope - Change in Name

Anyone who has visited this blog can see that I haven’t posted anything for a couple years. That’s because after 13 years of coaching youth soccer I “retired” and shifted my focus to refereeing. While my daughters ended their soccer career in 2006 when they graduated from high school I continued coaching at a club and with a friend whose son played in the town’s recreational program. I enjoyed it but the demands of business travel and family commitments won out. Rather than pull the plug on this blog I decided to expand it’s scope to include other sports, primarily tennis and skiing. I thought about rolling this into my blog on flourishing but some of the things I’d like to talk about have to do with technique lessons I’ve learned.

Getting back to soccer, I started to referee because I blew out my knee playing soccer in a men’s pick up game in 2002. (The same year I got a kidney stone so I call 2002 the Year of Pain.)  Torn ACL, PCL and MCL plus a detached hamstring and the muscle bundle at the top of the fibula. Had to have two cadaver ligaments installed and the surgeon needed to sever my quad to make a repair behind it then reattach the quad. The surgery took 6 hours while the rehab took 7 months. I now have to wear an ACL brace to give my leg lateral stability because the replacement MCL isn’t as tight as the factory installed MCL. When I asked the surgeon (whose specialty is knee and shoulder repairs) how my injury rated on a scale of 1 (minor injury) to 10 (major injury) he said it was a 9 for a sports-related injury. (!) Still, I was actually thinking of playing again! That was until my wife threatened to divorce me if I stepped foot onto the pitch again. My compromise was to get a referee license so that I could still be out on the field even though I’m not passing or shooting the ball.

It was a good decision. I was still coaching during the first five years of refereeing so I think seeing things from the player’s perspective helped me see things differently than standing on the sidelines. You also hear the players grumbling about what their coaches and parents are yelling at them. Refereeing gave me the workout I’m looking for but there was something else: the camaraderie with my fellow referees. I have chosen to referee just the games in my town’s recreational program where there is a small pool of referees. And each game typically has three referees assigned: a center and two assistant referees. As a result we get to know each other. It’s similar to the camaraderie that I experienced playing in the pick up games.

So what does this have to do with the change in the blog? Good question! I guess it’s my final installment on a purely soccer-related subject. In future posts I’ll share my experience trying techniques that don’t fall into the traditional advice that people are given when they want to learn to play tennis, ski or even run. As a preview I’ve worked on applying the ideas of the late Mark Papas at Revolutionary Tennis, Harald Harb’s “phantom move” in skiing and Danny Dreyer’s chi running which I use when refereeing. Stay tuned!