Ref Shortage

[grunewar]

Another article about ref shortages due to abuse:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...=.d9f3961727ab

Basketball isn't specifically mentioned. In NVA, that's one sport we have a good many officials at the scholastic level.

My son decided to take up football officiating this year as he says they are so hurting for officials they are moving more and more games off of Fri nights as they can't get enough crews......

[Player989random]

Hehe, well as I'm sure your boy will soon discover, there are several reasons that that group has issues retaining officials. However abuse is the major factor.

Of the several high school sports I do, soccer is the worst. It's the only time I've had people take photos, follow me, or even try to fight me. From the richest parts of NoVA down to the poorest, parents think it's a great idea to try the guys in the flamboyantly yellow/green/red/blue shirts (I'm betting that doesn't help either ). I blame the professionals. It's hard to find a game where the referee isn't surround by players who are chewing him out over an obvious foul call. Coaches/kids see that and think "Yeah, that's appropriate, I can do that in my game".

Yet I don't see a fix in the future. Soccer has parents get certified and ref if the kids are U13 and under, but most clubs are trying to do away with that. I think that's what we'll see in the future; parents being forced to officiate so their kids will have umps/refs. Maybe, and I doubt it, they'll finally just shut the hell up.

P.S. I think basketball somewhat avoids the problem because we have a handle on the coaches/kids. You do a quarter of the dissent in soccer in a basketball game and you'll be ejected inside 6 minutes. And I assure you, my group has been heavily recruiting these past few seasons.

[ballgame99]

Player 989, sounds like you guys need to start using your red cards more! Stqart kicking people out of the game and see how that changes things!

[Mbilica]

Originally Posted by ballgame99

Player 989, sounds like you guys need to start using your red cards more! Stqart kicking people out of the game and see how that changes things!

I take your point. No referee should tolerate unsporting behavior. You can't use a Red card on anyone except players in US soccer, but referees have options in every situation. A coach can be dismissed. If spectators are harassing the players or officials, the referee can stop the match and enlist the coaches to deal with the situation. If the coaches can't or won't, then abandon the match. Report the incident to your state association and it should be dealt with. If you find your town is particularly tough to deal with, work for a different assignor. Referees have more power than they realize.

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[SC Official]

I know you can't really compare sports, but I've always been amazed at the amount of BS soccer officials are expected to put up with.

[JRutledge]

Right or wrong, we are not in a country that cares about soccer on some large scale. Most of the soccer officials I know, either played the game or are from another country or speak other languages. So soccer is their sport they play. This is not football or basketball where the country is obsessed over those sports already and you are asking for officials to work a sport they might not understand on some level or even like. To me this is the problem for sports like soccer, volleyball or even lacrosse. Even football in my area is becoming a problem, but that is because schools decided to play on Friday when they used to play many games on Saturday. But the attitudes of parents and coaches are certainly not helping. I am not sure if I did not know what I know now that I would want to do this either. I have been around for over 20 years and doing youth sports is not what I want to be associated with anymore either.

Peace

[Player989random]

Originally Posted by Mbilica

Personally, I think the referee abuse and assault problem in soccer is a complicated one. I don't think soccer, as a youth sport, is any better or worse than another youth sport. If I had to rank them, I think I see more abuse in High School basketball than in any soccer games. Upper level youth and Amateur/pro adult soccer is actually better, in my opinion than the same level baseball games. Youth football is notorious and is the only for which I have seen officials requiring a police escort to safely get to their cars. So, I think society, as a whole needs to get on top of the problem of referee abuse and assault, and we shouldn't focus on one sport over another.

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When I was in HS I had a bunch of friends who did the little kid leagues to make some easy money. Nowadays I rarely meet a teenager working a game. They all say it's due to the crazy parents and the coaches who harass them. Say what you will about the "soft generation", but if you're 15, why would want to spend your weekends getting insulted by 40 year old parents?

Then add in the stress when you ref a HS sport, and bam, no one is signing up. I don't know how baseball is, but I've seen it in youth football, soccer, and basketball. It's evil all the way down.

I say we start doing what FIFA does after racism is reported in certain games; we block the games off from spectators. You wanna watch Lil'Johnny play, you sit it down and shut it up.

EDIT: To address the lack of a rating system that doesn't "adequately provide evaluations of referee performance.", the day I see an honest and fair assessment from a coach is the day I ref a perfect game. Send a tape in, pay to have someone analyze the referees, learn that your players connected 30% of their passes, had 15 turnovers, and lost the game their ****ing selves.

[grunewar]

Originally Posted by Player989random

When I was in HS I had a bunch of friends who did the little kid leagues to make some easy money. Nowadays I rarely meet a teenager working a game. They all say it's due to the crazy parents and the coaches who harass them. Say what you will about the "soft generation", but if you're 15, why would want to spend your weekends getting insulted by 40 year old parents?

One of our Rec Leagues has a pretty good youth, ref development program. They can start officiating as early 13 with the little kids (7/8) with an adult mentor there. I'm happy to say that several of these young officials keep it up into HS and even during their college years during breaks and the summer.

For many of them it's their first paying job (outside of mom and dad).

But, it's certainly not for everyone that's for sure.

[rbruno]

18 years if officiating basketball from HS varsity down to youth levels during the entire year. So I've seen all the crap we talk about from the parents, coaches and unfortunately the kids. I believe it has gotten much worse in the 18 years I have been doing this. My feeling is that youth associations, NFHS, or whatever governing body in charge has to start to set in motion a zero tolerance policy. Its about time this nonsense stops so the kids can start to have "fun" (sorry I used the F word) and the officials can just do their job and not have to "manage" anyone. It sounds impossible but I wonder what would happen after a year of no tolerance. Kick out the parents, don't allow any coach antics ( I mean none), and teach the kids that they have to just shut up and play. The nonsense behavior from all around has become the norm not the exception. This clearly needs to be reversed. I know I always comment to my partner when we do a game where players play, coaches coach, and parents clap and cheer.... Good game "just like its supposed to be."

[deecee]

Originally Posted by rbruno

18 years if officiating basketball from HS varsity down to youth levels during the entire year. So I've seen all the crap we talk about from the parents, coaches and unfortunately the kids. I believe it has gotten much worse in the 18 years I have been doing this. My feeling is that youth associations, NFHS, or whatever governing body in charge has to start to set in motion a zero tolerance policy. Its about time this nonsense stops so the kids can start to have "fun" (sorry I used the F word) and the officials can just do their job and not have to "manage" anyone. It sounds impossible but I wonder what would happen after a year of no tolerance. Kick out the parents, don't allow any coach antics ( I mean none), and teach the kids that they have to just shut up and play. The nonsense behavior from all around has become the norm not the exception. This clearly needs to be reversed. I know I always comment to my partner when we do a game where players play, coaches coach, and parents clap and cheer.... Good game "just like its supposed to be."

That's up to you (and other refs) to manage. Most don't IMO. I do. I also have more coaches not like me because I don't like to deal with garbage. Way toooooo many officials let to much slide that coaches know it's easier to just request me off a game because they have a 75%+ chance of getting guys that will let them and their players act like fools.

When refs complain about a coaches or players behavior and I ask them what they did about it. If they say they did nothing I ask them to stop complaining to me. If they said they did something but the behavior didn't change I then ask them then why did you change your adjudication if you ALREADY drew a line. If they say nothing then I ask them to stop complaining to me. If they did take care of business then I can usually relate because it's the same offenders year in/year out that as officials we just roll our eyes because in part working those games aren't exactly fun sometimes.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by deecee

That's up to you (and other refs) to manage. Most don't IMO. I do. I also have more coaches not like me because I don't like to deal with garbage. Way toooooo many officials let to much slide that coaches know it's easier to just request me off a game because they have a 75%+ chance of getting guys that will let them and their players act like fools.

When refs complain about a coaches or players behavior and I ask them what they did about it. If they say they did nothing I ask them to stop complaining to me. If they said they did something but the behavior didn't change I then ask them then why did you change your adjudication if you ALREADY drew a line. If they say nothing then I ask them to stop complaining to me. If they did take care of business then I can usually relate because it's the same offenders year in/year out that as officials we just roll our eyes because in part working those games aren't exactly fun sometimes.

That sounds great, but we are not doing this in a bubble. We can give all the Ts in the world if we do not have support by our assignors or leagues or state than it only goes so far of what we can do personally.

I threw a kid out of a game earlier this year for basically trying to intimidate me directly and he was tossed. You would have thought that I had pulled a gun on the kid and was totally out of line based on the fall out after the incident. Well ironically, this very same kid was kicked out of his school for cursing out a teacher at the private school he attended. But if the adults would have not allowed certain behavior, what I did in a game would have never needed to take place. If I was a less accomplished official or someone with much less experience, I might have seriously contemplated getting out of this. But I have been here before and seen this before and was able to overcome the situation. But I did not feel I got support by those involved for not being treated like I was a kid.

I am a grown ass man and wish to be treated as such. I am also not going around treating other adults like they are not adults. But I refuse to treat kids like they are adults when I was not raised that way or act like if they act up I cannot do something about their behavior. But many in power allow that kind of situation to continue even if we use the main tools we have within the game. So I am going to disagree that we cannot complain about it when we are not supported. Because if you give a T then they try to make it about you as the official, not the behavior that caused the reaction.

Peace