Age of Referees

[John]

Anyone like to comment on this? I am not a soccer ref, but I have been a basketball ref for 6 years. I was taught how to ref using a very formalized clinic where we had to go through a rigorous evaluation. As a soccer coach (USSF Certified) I have noticed that the officials seem to be getting younger and younger. My question is: What is the control mechanism on young referees? I do not feel that referees should work games where the players are the same age group or (worse yet) older. It makes for intimidation on the ref's part. I'm not saying the players or coaches will intentionally intimidate the young ref (some might). What I'm saying is that the ref will be intimidated because the players are older, and most of the time faster. I don't feel that, for example, a 13 or 14 year old ref can keep up with the pace of play of a group of Premier U-18s. I see this trend in soccer more and more, but never in any other sport. My personal opinion is that until referees reach 18 years old they should be restricted to U-10. Thoughts or comments?

[Steve Smtih]

I agree with you. I work for a youth sports organizations that will register over 18,000 kids this year in 14 sports. We use a lot of kids to officiate games, but always at the younger levels. For example, we will use 10-12 year olds to work t-ball games for 4-5 year olds. We will use kids younger than the players to run the game clocks in basketball. We may have a 10 year running the clock for a high school age game, but the on court officials are adults at that level. The only time we come close to the situation you mention is that we will use a high school age official for high school level volleyball games, only because we have a hard time getting enough qualified adult volleyball officials.

------------------
Steven S. Smith

[the flying dutchman]

here in holland when a referee becomes 18 years old he is allowed to lead u-10 games

[Art N]

In our regular town league, we use younger refs for the lower level games. In general, they have to be in the next level up at least. (i.e. 14 yr olds do our U10's, 16 yr olds may do a u12. We are using 18+ to do U14's and above)

[Mark Dexter]

Originally posted by Steve Smtih
I agree with you. I work for a youth sports organizations that will register over 18,000 kids this year in 14 sports. We use a lot of kids to officiate games, but always at the younger levels. For example, we will use 10-12 year olds to work t-ball games for 4-5 year olds. We will use kids younger than the players to run the game clocks in basketball. We may have a 10 year running the clock for a high school age game, but the on court officials are adults at that level. The only time we come close to the situation you mention is that we will use a high school age official for high school level volleyball games, only because we have a hard time getting enough qualified adult volleyball officials.

------------------
Steven S. Smith

A ten year old doing the clock in basketball? I hope (for his sake) this isn't varsity ball. I had enough trouble figuring out the rules, mechanics, and (most importantly) handling coaches when I was a freshman in high school.

[ref5678]

i'm a 14 year old baseball umpire and you guys dont need to worry about us guys gettin intimidated you might want to worry about some of us being to assertive and quick to ejectons

[Stephen M Ross]

The liefeblood of any organization is its youth. Recently our local soccer referee association created an new position on the board to facilitate and encourage young referees to participate in all aspects of our profession - and we are professionals. The position will be filled by a referee who is under 18 years of age. It will be interesting to see how this affects recruitment and maintaining our young officials.

[ref5678]

finally some people are starting to understand
the importance of recruting and maintaing young refs

thank you very much