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Post by time2retire on Sept 27, 2021 9:33:24 GMT -6
My group has been traveling every weekend and we have several more in the future planned. Destin, Gulfport, Mandeville has the Midnight Madness coming up, and we’re also headed to a DC suburb this fall for a tournament. Lots of games to be worked and money to be made.
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Post by time2retire on Sept 28, 2021 18:28:26 GMT -6
Good evening coaches and administrators, we have a new soccer referee course available for the local youth games. If you could please pass the information along to your players, I would appreciate it.
Must be 13 to register, but we need adults also. Easy 4 step process: -Create a profile at learning.ussoccer.com -Complete online coursework ($96 includes all course fees and uniform) -Complete background check (18+) ($30, referees under 18 are exempt) -Attend a local in person clinic (October 17, 2pm, BCSP 12 in Houma)
Mentorship during games is available at no additional cost to the referee - youth referees are not put on games alone with no one to turn to for help, and they receive instant feedback on their performance.
Local pay scale: U10 - 30/20/20 U11/12 - 35/25/25 U13/14 - 45/30/30 U15/16 - 50/40/40 U17/18/19 - 60/50/50
Tournaments typically pay cash game rates plus meals and hotels for traveling referees, some even providing an additional travel stipend.
Feel free to contact me with any questions you or your players may have.
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Post by time2retire on Oct 12, 2021 20:21:29 GMT -6
It's not looking good this year. Every area is on track to be negative % growth this year, even my own. With the number of schools not declining, there will be many more games with dual (two) referee systems. If the players and coaches despise a two man system, believe me when I say we have no love for the system either. But we might not have any other choice.
This is really the last chance to register. Deadline is Oct 19. Registration fee is $52. Website is lhsaa.arbitersports.com
I know that I advocate heavily for the referee community and I appreciate the consideration any of you would give to trying it out. Without you, we can't grow as a community.
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Post by coachray40 on Oct 13, 2021 19:35:27 GMT -6
It's not looking good this year. Every area is on track to be negative % growth this year, even my own. With the number of schools not declining, there will be many more games with dual (two) referee systems. If the players and coaches despise a two man system, believe me when I say we have no love for the system either. But we might not have any other choice. This is really the last chance to register. Deadline is Oct 19. Registration fee is $52. Website is lhsaa.arbitersports.com I know that I advocate heavily for the referee community and I appreciate the consideration any of you would give to trying it out. Without you, we can't grow as a community. Well, time to retire, Im going to bag on the officials a bit now. If the quality of the next generation of young refs was on display this past weekend at United cup, then I would say we are in some deep do-do. Just appallingly bad As for the two ref system, well, it was on display at United Cup as well, but not like NFHS. Nope, US Soccer requires a youth two ref system to be a center and one AR. Properly executed it isn't that bad, but I watched all weekend as Center after Center ran it incorrectly. Unfortunately for all of us who paid our money and entered our teams expecting 3 officials, it seems United Cup didnt follow along with the assignors recommendation of a number to cap teams at, opting to take on almost 40% more than that which was recommended. Low and behold, fewer refs doing more games and the quality suffering. I had two of my three games without a 3rd official, and only after we played Thursday night (when we got a very weak three) Funny that bayou area is hurting (not really....storm certainly had impact), as Baton Rouge assignor told me this weekend he looks to have more refs this year than last. I don't detest the 2 ref system at all. I really have not seen that many issues with it where its been such a monumental drop off in quality from a three man. The common complaint from referees is that "its works good only when you have two guys that know what they are doing". Well then train your guys so they know what they are doing! That is a referee community problem, not a team and school problem. From a financial standpoint, I refuse to use a three man system for most games that are non district. Just doesn't make sense to spend the extra 50 plus dollars 10 times a year, and Im NEVER using three officials for JV. Its my opinion right now that officiating is the only element of soccer in this state that is not improving or keeping up. Over the last 20 years facilities have gotten better, clubs are better organized and offer more soccer programs, coaching is way better and as thus players have gotten better. Officiating on a whole has not. The biggest reason in my opinion is that while clubs coaches and players still have ways to be held accountable for their quality and /or organization, referees do not. I find many of our officials have a very poo-poo you away attitude that is like "I don't care how I perform because you cant do anything about it". Is it going to take a serious referee liable injury or incident to get the ball rolling on the betterment of our officiating in this state? The US is becoming a very uptight nation and you can never know what to expect from fans and players. Officials need to do better now more than ever. I know what I'm going to hear next "well it a nationwide problem, and we are having the same issues as everyone else." What I hear when that gets said to me is that "we aren't really willing to try and innovate and lead the rest of the country with how we recruit and train our officials--we will just do business as usual" Hence the lack of improvement while the remainder of the facets of soccer in Louisiana do. And as always, the easiest solution is the one that's taken.....again and again...just pay them more. Throw more money at the problem and it will go away. That's not happening. We have a lot of good refs in LA, just not enough, and we also have a lot of poor ones. Maybe its time we get rid of the "thin yellow line" and start holding these guys accountable when they do poorly. Just like Ive never seen a ref change his call because some player, coach or parent beeched at him, I have also never heard a ref admit he had a poor performance when he did
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Post by time2retire on Oct 13, 2021 20:02:25 GMT -6
It's not looking good this year. Every area is on track to be negative % growth this year, even my own. With the number of schools not declining, there will be many more games with dual (two) referee systems. If the players and coaches despise a two man system, believe me when I say we have no love for the system either. But we might not have any other choice. This is really the last chance to register. Deadline is Oct 19. Registration fee is $52. Website is lhsaa.arbitersports.com I know that I advocate heavily for the referee community and I appreciate the consideration any of you would give to trying it out. Without you, we can't grow as a community. Well, time to retire, Im going to bag on the officials a bit now. If the quality of the next generation of young refs was on display this past weekend at United cup, then I would say we are in some deep do-do. Just appallingly bad As for the two ref system, well, it was on display at United Cup as well, but not like NFHS. Nope, US Soccer requires a youth two ref system to be a center and one AR. Properly executed it isn't that bad, but I watched all weekend as Center after Center ran it incorrectly. Unfortunately for all of us who paid our money and entered our teams expecting 3 officials, it seems United Cup didnt follow along with the assignors recommendation of a number to cap teams at, opting to take on almost 40% more than that which was recommended. Low and behold, fewer refs doing more games and the quality suffering. I had two of my three games without a 3rd official, and only after we played Thursday night (when we got a very weak three) Funny that bayou area is hurting (not really....storm certainly had impact), as Baton Rouge assignor told me this weekend he looks to have more refs this year than last. I don't detest the 2 ref system at all. I really have not seen that many issues with it where its been such a monumental drop off in quality from a three man. The common complaint from referees is that "its works good only when you have two guys that know what they are doing". Well then train your guys so they know what they are doing! That is a referee community problem, not a team and school problem. From a financial standpoint, I refuse to use a three man system for most games that are non district. Just doesn't make sense to spend the extra 50 plus dollars 10 times a year, and Im NEVER using three officials for JV. Its my opinion right now that officiating is the only element of soccer in this state that is not improving or keeping up. Over the last 20 years facilities have gotten better, clubs are better organized and offer more soccer programs, coaching is way better and as thus players have gotten better. Officiating on a whole has not. The biggest reason in my opinion is that while clubs coaches and players still have ways to be held accountable for their quality and /or organization, referees do not. I find many of our officials have a very poo-poo you away attitude that is like "I don't care how I perform because you cant do anything about it". Is it going to take a serious referee liable injury or incident to get the ball rolling on the betterment of our officiating in this state? The US is becoming a very uptight nation and you can never know what to expect from fans and players. Officials need to do better now more than ever. I know what I'm going to hear next "well it a nationwide problem, and we are having the same issues as everyone else." What I hear when that gets said to me is that "we aren't really willing to try and innovate and lead the rest of the country with how we recruit and train our officials--we will just do business as usual" Hence the lack of improvement while the remainder of the facets of soccer in Louisiana do. And as always, the easiest solution is the one that's taken.....again and again...just pay them more. Throw more money at the problem and it will go away. That's not happening. We have a lot of good refs in LA, just not enough, and we also have a lot of poor ones. Maybe its time we get rid of the "thin yellow line" and start holding these guys accountable when they do poorly. Just like Ive never seen a ref change his call because some player, coach or parent beeched at him, I have also never heard a ref admit he had a poor performance when he did I wasn’t at United Cup and I don’t think any of my guys were part of it, so I can’t really comment on any of that. This year for school soccer I lost a handful. I’m fortunate to pick up enough today to be even with my number for last year. It’s always an uphill battle and there were plenty I expected to lose due to age, and some I didn’t expect to lose that I did. A school can always choose the system of officials to be used and I would have to oblige. Since many of us have comms systems the dual system can be used and provide a much more fluid game. But there are still many fundamental problems with dual system. Training programs are localized and I can only answer for my own and the things I do. Between monthly club training and weekly NFHS training (that is open to all, the Round Table topics on this forum), I think my area provides a pretty solid and dedicated training program. I can only control my controllables and other areas might have their own plans. In fact, I was recently contacted by a national publication for officials on the things I do for training, recruiting, and retention. Just because you don’t see what is done regarding a poor performance doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, because it definitely did last year during a broadcast game during playoffs - some referees were not selected to further assignments. And for some of us, we know where we stand. Just this past weekend I had a coach lay into me after the game for not cautioning a defender and I let the coach know he was 100% correct for that situation. No point in defending my decision when I knew I was wrong. I’ve also had a coach tell me I shouldn’t have made a decision that they didn’t know was adopted into NFHS by club that year. How would you hold those accountable and who gets to make those decisions? If we’re talking school you could always carefully use your scratch form to at least take what you consider to be the very worst out of your pool of available officials. We aren’t gonna see eye-to-eye on this, but I do respect you and your opinion, and I’d like to hear from your angle some of the things you might do or your suggestions for improvement. Because I sure haven’t thought of everything and I’m open to new things that can possibly work for all of us. As far as a “thin yellow line” - I don’t play that game. I do praise publicly and admonish privately. I do bring many referees to many events and provide opportunities that they typically would not have if they were part of other groups. I don’t have an inner circle and I don’t mind letting folks know where I stand. Our code of ethics informs us to never openly promote public criticism of a fellow referee and there are plenty of matters that are handled privately. Again, I can only answer for me/BSR and the way I run things.
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Post by time2retire on Oct 13, 2021 22:45:36 GMT -6
After being in Hattiesburg all weekend, I totally understand why I don't get yelled at when I am there refereeing... They have zero clue on advantage, offside, handballs, or even a proper throw-in. It was for a Mid-South weekend too... horrid. Thought of this very post during a Mid-South game I had recently. I had a bunch of screaming banshees behind me spouting out some real gems. “If it deflects from a defender he can’t be offsides” “If it comes off the goalie he can’t be offsides” “He got the ball 10 yards behind our defense he has to be offsides” I don’t mind explaining something when I have the time, but I can’t make someone understand it. Engagement would have only led to debate and I wasn’t willing to take my focus off of this game. This was only one group of folks during one game and wasn’t the norm for the weekend. The rest were top notch (especially the FC Tammany or Slidell girls parents that came check on me when I had to leave - very much appreciated)
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Post by firebruin on Oct 14, 2021 8:50:21 GMT -6
Interestingly enough... I was talking about the REFEREES not having a clue.
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Post by time2retire on Oct 18, 2021 8:17:03 GMT -6
We had 10 new referees in the course yesterday in Houma
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Post by Skippers on Oct 19, 2021 12:24:23 GMT -6
Paying the extra $500 a season, in my opinion, is well worth running a 3-man for every JV and/or 9th match - worth it for everyone involved (players, refs, coaches and fans). I request a 3-man for every game here. We have 28 home games this year amongst 3 teams - mostly triple headers.
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Post by time2retire on Dec 16, 2021 15:17:02 GMT -6
Available course online for new referees - in person session February 6 in Thibodaux
learning.ussoccer.com
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Post by time2retire on Dec 18, 2021 17:05:40 GMT -6
If your game this weekend had dual referees and you would like to gain experience before next year’s school season, you can get two full seasons experience if you sign up for the February 6 course. School has a different certification process but you would feel a lot more confident in your ability by the time October rolls around.
I’ll be more than glad to help you through the process
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Post by time2retire on Jan 25, 2022 7:14:17 GMT -6
Plenty of examples lately about lack of referees. How awesome would it be if we picked up even 1 graduating senior from every other school?
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Post by wildcatstriker on Jan 25, 2022 8:09:11 GMT -6
Plenty of examples lately about lack of referees. How awesome would it be if we picked up even 1 graduating senior from every other school? While that would be good, it won’t change the number that determine it’s not worth having to deal with players, coaches, and parents who not only don’t know the rules of the game, but cross the line when it comes to demonstrating how little they know. Adding more referees to a system designed for them to fail and without the support of coaches and school administrators will not get us out of this.
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Post by time2retire on Jan 25, 2022 8:27:53 GMT -6
Plenty of examples lately about lack of referees. How awesome would it be if we picked up even 1 graduating senior from every other school? While that would be good, it won’t change the number that determine it’s not worth having to deal with players, coaches, and parents who not only don’t know the rules of the game, but cross the line when it comes to demonstrating how little they know. Adding more referees to a system designed for them to fail and without the support of coaches and school administrators will not get us out of this. When people do cross the line, use the tools that you have to maintain control. With players and coaches, we have cards. With spectators in a school game, we have administrators. With spectators in a club game, we go to the coach. We fail when we don’t use the tools we have to deal with the situations we are presented with. *I* fail when a referee doesn’t know the tools he has to deal with situations. Sure, players/coaches/parents might only know basics (and some a lot less than others). They’ll never want to understand the “why” behind a call. The most I can do is offer when the temperature comes back down a few notches. Too often, spectators don’t want an explanation or understanding, they want a debate - and I’d venture to say 75% or better of referees take that bait. This is where continuous education and practical refereeing come into play. If your area is offering once a month meetings and a topic gets covered, you’re gonna deal with it a lot better than your pals who skip it. And it does not hurt to invite those players/coaches/parents to take part in a once a month meeting, because they might ask questions or be inclined to learn more. It’s a two way street where we have to keep our lane open and put the ball in their court. Complete night and day turnaround in my area from before I got here to today. It can be done.
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Post by rlb2024 on Jan 25, 2022 8:56:34 GMT -6
I was a referee for four years. I only worked club -- I did not do high school as my work schedule wouldn't allow for it. I really enjoyed it and gained a lot of knowledge for the game, especially for someone that did not grow up with any exposure to soccer and whose playing experience consisted of four intramural games in college. I gave it up when my son was in high school and was traveling most weekends with club soccer.
I highly encourage people to sign up and take the courses. It really helps to see things differently when you are sitting in the stands and watching. It doesn't mean that you will stop wanting to yell at the ref about a missed or questionable call, but it will make you think about what the ref is seeing that maybe you missed -- and you'll think twice before saying something careless. And you can explain to others sitting around you why it's not automatically a red card just because two people run into each other (yes, I had that question come up).
One suggestion, though -- start young. I was in my 50s when I became a ref, and that's too old to start and think you can still keep up running with high school kids.
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Post by time2retire on Jan 25, 2022 9:03:47 GMT -6
I was a referee for four years. I only worked club -- I did not do high school as my work schedule wouldn't allow for it. I really enjoyed it and gained a lot of knowledge for the game, especially for someone that did not grow up with any exposure to soccer and whose playing experience consisted of four intramural games in college. I gave it up when my son was in high school and was traveling most weekends with club soccer. I highly encourage people to sign up and take the courses. It really helps to see things differently when you are sitting in the stands and watching. It doesn't mean that you will stop wanting to yell at the ref about a missed or questionable call, but it will make you think about what the ref is seeing that maybe you missed -- and you'll think twice before saying something careless. And you can explain to others sitting around you why it's not automatically a red card just because two people run into each other (yes, I had that question come up). One suggestion, though -- start young. I was in my 50s when I became a ref, and that's too old to start and think you can still keep up running with high school kids. Thanks for this. The minimum age is 13 but we definitely need adults also. One of the biggest gaps (and most sought after folks) are between 20-35.
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Law18
Bench Warmer
Posts: 35
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Post by Law18 on Jan 25, 2022 11:12:55 GMT -6
Plenty of examples lately about lack of referees. How awesome would it be if we picked up even 1 graduating senior from every other school? While that would be good, it won’t change the number that determine it’s not worth having to deal with players, coaches, and parents who not only don’t know the rules of the game, but cross the line when it comes to demonstrating how little they know. Adding more referees to a system designed for them to fail and without the support of coaches and school administrators will not get us out of this. I know of 3 separate occasions this HS season where one or multiple spectators threatened a referee by saying "meet me in the parking lot/you'll find me in the parking lot after the game". By the way, one of the referees told this is a young female.
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Post by DocT on Jan 25, 2022 11:52:51 GMT -6
While that would be good, it won’t change the number that determine it’s not worth having to deal with players, coaches, and parents who not only don’t know the rules of the game, but cross the line when it comes to demonstrating how little they know. Adding more referees to a system designed for them to fail and without the support of coaches and school administrators will not get us out of this. I know of 3 separate occasions this HS season where one or multiple spectators threatened a referee by saying "meet me in the parking lot/you'll find me in the parking lot after the game". By the way, one of the referees told this is a young female. Totally unacceptable
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Post by wildcatstriker on Jan 25, 2022 13:08:30 GMT -6
While that would be good, it won’t change the number that determine it’s not worth having to deal with players, coaches, and parents who not only don’t know the rules of the game, but cross the line when it comes to demonstrating how little they know. Adding more referees to a system designed for them to fail and without the support of coaches and school administrators will not get us out of this. When people do cross the line, use the tools that you have to maintain control. With players and coaches, we have cards. With spectators in a school game, we have administrators. With spectators in a club game, we go to the coach. We fail when we don’t use the tools we have to deal with the situations we are presented with. *I* fail when a referee doesn’t know the tools he has to deal with situations. Sure, players/coaches/parents might only know basics (and some a lot less than others). They’ll never want to understand the “why” behind a call. The most I can do is offer when the temperature comes back down a few notches. Too often, spectators don’t want an explanation or understanding, they want a debate - and I’d venture to say 75% or better of referees take that bait. This is where continuous education and practical refereeing come into play. If your area is offering once a month meetings and a topic gets covered, you’re gonna deal with it a lot better than your pals who skip it. And it does not hurt to invite those players/coaches/parents to take part in a once a month meeting, because they might ask questions or be inclined to learn more. It’s a two way street where we have to keep our lane open and put the ball in their court. Complete night and day turnaround in my area from before I got here to today. It can be done. This is what we need more of. Especially from the coaches/administrators. And not just soccer, I know FB and BB seem to be much worse. Ours is a simple game, and should be made easy to follow and support. Like time2retire said, it can be done.
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Post by gallstar on Jan 25, 2022 15:54:15 GMT -6
While that would be good, it won’t change the number that determine it’s not worth having to deal with players, coaches, and parents who not only don’t know the rules of the game, but cross the line when it comes to demonstrating how little they know. Adding more referees to a system designed for them to fail and without the support of coaches and school administrators will not get us out of this. I know of 3 separate occasions this HS season where one or multiple spectators threatened a referee by saying "meet me in the parking lot/you'll find me in the parking lot after the game". By the way, one of the referees told this is a young female. wow. This is terrible and a disgrace to the highest degree. I try to refrain from talking about officials unless it become egregious. That’s far and few between but if a person challenged an official like this especially a female I’m getting involved. This is disgusting.
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