Question Number: 14588

League Specific 12/13/2006

RE: Rec, Select, State Cup Adult

Tom of Northern, VA USA asks...

Hello refs. Great reference site for all of us! Thanks.

I would like to know how you would handle this situation. A local club I sometimes ref for adopted a new policy this year in that there would be no ARs for U12 and younger. This is mainly due to a severe shortage of referees in the area. There were many new grade 9s this past season but they were only 13-14 yrs old themselves and aren't comfortable working with players their own age, especially as beginners. During many pre-games I had with these I found that it was their very first game and they were understandably nervous. They all had the "deer in the headlights" look on their faces. I did my best to encourage them. Now for the question: What can I do to try to get the club to assign ARs to at least U11 & U12 games. I've already written many letters and emails to the club reps and to the local assigner for the club. I've asked other refs to do the same. I've recruited many new refs to try to alleviate the shortage. Do you have any further suggestions as to a course of action? I didn't accept games from this club for a while but that was counter-productive (just made it one less ref to work) so I stopped.

Thanks for your help.

Answer provided by Referee Debbie Hoelscher

My ability to have the politically correct amount of empathy is pretty limited....so, keep that in mind as you read my answer....
Each U16 - U18 team must provide a referee to work the younger matches. this way, your coach, parent or player referee representative will have gone through Grade 8 Referee training and hopefully have a clue and won't abuse the referees doing their matches, and in turn get what they may have historically given in the U12's. Money talks too. If these teams won't provide a body, then they will have to provide a stipend to pay higher amounts for higher pay to refs....I'll work for higher pay! we all want a pay raise!

Answer provided by Referee Ben Mueller

That is happening around a lot of places. You can state your concerns and also, a potential plan for improvement to the club president. Also, try and motivate people to get into refereeing around your area.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

Great problem and it isn't yours alone. Many clubs do not supply assistants. Some even go to the length of "training" parents to be club linesmen. Whoopee. Having a club linesman is the same as working solo except sometimes you must overrule an incorrect decision.

What to do, Ref. Hoeslcher has a good idea. Not working there is another, find someplace else that's more fun. Some say this makes the kids suffer. True, but why does the referee have to suffer so the kids can have fun? Football, after all is said and done, is a game and games are supposed to be fun for the participants. Referees are participants.

The path I chose was to become an instructor. Then I taught nearly every class in my area for 10 years. The new referees went out for their first matches and listened to screaming, ignorant parents and promptly quit because it wasn't any fun. I tried to assist by becoming the league's assistant referee coordinator to teach monthly referee association meetings. The parents came to those and screamed there. That wasn't any fun either.

I became an assessor and went to the league's matches to see if the fault was with referees who were usually unobserved. The referees looked as if they didn't care what they looked like, then wore improper uniforms, they wore different color shirts, they were festooned with every kind of jewelry imaginable, they walked instead of run, they yielded to the screams of the parents, and on and on. I tried to correct these referees. The league banned a US Soccer instructor/assessor from attending their matches. I quit.

You see it isn't you, it is the league who would rather tend to their personal needs and pleasures instead of making Football fun for the participants.

The solution is vote the current league board of directors out, take their place and do things correctly.

Regards,

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

I am so glad our local associations have seen fit to assign AR's to U11/12 rec league games. I would hate to think of those newbies learning their craft at U14, the abuse they would get, and the dropout rate we would have. (If you don't like the inexperienced ref you have this season, yell at her a lot, she'll quit, and you'll have a brand new inexperienced ref next season.) Having a good assignor who puts new refs on games they can handle is a great plus to the program.

We don't get 100% coverage, probably 10% of our U12 games have only a center and another 10-15% have a center and a single AR. Older games and the select/premier leagues get even better coverage. For the U8's and U10's, which play small-sided games, only 1 ref is assigned, and we get about 70-80% coverage.

There are enough potential candidates. Almost every player has a parent, most have 2, and when counting step-parents some have 3 or 4. If each team would get one parent or other relative to certify as a referee, and then average 3 games every 2 weeks, every game would have a complete referee crew. Get them started even younger than Ref Hoelscher suggests, using parents or siblings of players, and you'll have enough refs to assign.

It can viewed as a Catch 22 situation. Why don't we have AR's? - because we don't have enough refs. Why don't we have enough refs? - because we don't train them as AR's.

I prefer to think, "Build it and they will come." Get a good program going, and it will self-sustain. Easier said than done when you're starting from behind. Best wishes to you and your organization.