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Thursday, December 17, 2009
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Before you scream at a ref ...
By Donna Olmstead
Sometimes as I slouch down in my lawn chair watching my
grandchildren's soccer games, I indulge in wishful thinking.
Only skillful, focused players on the field. Only knowledgeable,
supportive parents on the sidelines. Only coaches who remember
the bottom line is character development and not just winning
games. Only top-notch officials running the lines and the field.
Never going to happen. Like I said - wishful thinking.
Not that I'm an expert on the soccer subject. But I have spent
32 years immersed in youth soccer. As the chauffer. As the team
mom. As the team grandmother. And any other position that needed
a warm body. Some knowledge of the game is bound to rub off
after awhile.
Now my daughter and granddaughters are referees as well as
players. And I'm seeing games from a whole new angle.
Sitting on the bleachers watching my 14-year-old granddaughter
play at a Disney tournament recently, I got annoyed at our
parents for criticizing the assistant referee's seeming
inability to be in position to make good calls.
When the parents grew vocal enough for the AR to hear, I decided
to muffle the criticism. Duct tape would have done the job, but
I used something more personal - an incident that happened to my
16-year-old granddaughter Emily at a different game the day
before.
Emily was running the line on the parents' side and they gave
her a bad time about her offside calls. The coach even went to
the center ref after the game and complained about her.
Fortunately, the center ref had been paying attention and said
Emily's calls had been correct. This is a tough situation for a
young referee to handle, and probably why the attrition rate is
so high.
When I told our parents about Emily's experience, they were
indignant about anyone's criticizing Emily. After all, she's one
of ours. We know her. We know she's conscientious and unbiased.
She knows the game both as a player and a certified official.
How dare those parents and coach give her a rough time?!
Then I pointed at the AR running our line and said, "She's
somebody's Emily."
I know that, in the heat of competition, everyone forgets that
the officials are somebody's Emily or Tom or Dave. Parents
demand superhero officials. Which, in most cases, means
officials that make only calls the parents agree with. And when
most of the parents don't even know the difference between being
offside or being in an offside position, that would be an
impossible demand.
You couldn't pay me enough to take the abuse that soccer
officials take. I'd probably take the field armed with a whistle
and a small caliber handgun. And because I know that about
myself, I stay on the sidelines. And try to encourage parents to
send positive energy toward the field. And to try to help them
remember that the every official is somebody's Emily.
(Florida resident Donna Olmstead has been
involved in soccer through both her children and her
grandchildren, as well as housing professional players and
owning and running an indoor soccer facility. She is a freelance
writer and spends weekends trying to remember which tournament
she's supposed to be cheering at.)
Do you have an idea for a Youth Insider
Soccer column? We'd love to hear it. E-mail us at:
mike@socceramerica.com.
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