Change in site….
So I was an idiot when I started this blog and mistyped the entry and so I ended up with blowyourwhitle.workpress.com….Notice I missed the ‘s’ in whistle.
So here is the new site…..http://blowyourwhistle.wordpress.com
Please rebookmark the site if you enjoy what you read here….
Last night I had a rare USSF U15 girls match for me. (I have been 90%in NISOA and High School this fall) I am late in the game with about 13 minutes left and the score is 4-1. One of the forwards #25 for the winning team has not scored yet and you can tell she is really pressing to get a goal. I have called two fouls on her in the last 5 minutes where she was simply push the defender off the ball to try and get to the goal. She has lost her patients at this point in the game.
She is dribbling hard towards the goal and takes a long dribble. The smart sweeper came through and cleaned that ball up and with her third touch cleared it out of the back field. Well after the ball is gone here come #25 in hard and slides into the sweeper who just finished clearing the ball, taking out the defender. I hit the whistle hard and instantly went to the yellow card. She says nothing, she knew it was coming.
From this point forward I could hear her chirping about every little touch with an opponent or call I made. Finally there was a play where two players were battling for the ball, both bumping so I let the play go on. She starts yelling behind me to call it. Finally the forward for the losing team gets her elbow up cleans the defender out of her way which I quickly called. Once I made the call I turned directly to #25 and said “no more, I don’t want to hear it.” She responds “Then call it both ways”. (Yep I should have tossed out the second yellow and said good bye) I simply returned my closest “look of death” that I have in my bag of tricks. Well with 30 seconds left in the game she get a long ball and heads to goal. My AR raises his flag for offsides and I hit the whistle. She turns throws her hands up in the and says “You have got to be kidding”. Their team captain is standing next to me at this point and I look at her and said “get control of her because I am working hard to keep her in this game.” The captain jumped to action and quited her down.
Once the game was over the head coach came over to grab his team cards from me and I mentioned to him that she started talking to me after she got the yellow and it took a lot to keep her in the game. He looks at me and says “thanks I appreciate it but next time please toss her, she won’t figure it out until she gets the red. That is why I left her out there was to get the red. She hasn’t grasped it yet with me talking to her…”
WOW…..OK two things I went through in my head. 1. YES second game this week I failed to pull the red when I probably should have. When the coach is asking for the red on his own player that is a sign I should have tossed out a red. 2. So this coach has a problem player and he just lets her play on????
Great game other then that. Ran 1.5 in first half (one sided half with losing team against a wind) and 2.2 in the second half. I didn’t wear the heart rate monitor.
I have an over 30 match tonight with a U14 boys game at 9am in the morning followed by the 5A girls quarter final game. Both centers. I will update on Sunday on a much needed day off.
What a game I had last night….
I wasn’t suppose to have the game but it all fell into place. I had blocked my calendar simply because I knew I would be sore from the NCAA games over the weekend. Well Sunday evening a begging email was sent out requesting us to look at our calendars and see if we could open for Monday night. I opened up my calendar and sure enough I got assigned the top 5A girls match for the evening. This game had all kinds of impact on the conference standing heading into the district tournament this weekend.
Well the game started out on fire. 4 minutes into the game the home teams forward broke through on a ball from over the top. (Oh crap I had about a 70 yard sprint to stay on top of that play). Sure enough the defender got ahold of her jersey about 5 yards before the box but the forward was strong enough to pull the defender along. The defender got the better of the battle about 7 yards later and brought the forward down about 2 yards inside the box. I went right to the PK spot on a hard blown whistle. The goalie who is also a young official started pleading that it was outside the box. The PK was made with easy. Oh did I mention that I TOTALLY HOSED it though because it was obvious DOGSO and I didn’t even pull a card. I could have kicked my own ass for that one. No one complained but I should of had instantly went there. (it actually hit me about 2 seconds after the PK was shot that I should of gone DOGSO).
About 5 minutes left in the 1st half the home team scored a second goal. This seemed to calm the game down for a little while. Well with 15 minutes left in the game there was a simple obstruction call directly in front of the visitors bench against the home team. The home player kicked the ball away after I just warned her about it. So I quickly flashed the yellow but that always sucks to flash a yellow as the coach who is 5 feet way is demanding the yellow. Well this ball was played across the box with the visiting team forward taking a huge push in the back. I hit my whistle and thank goodness my AR who was really close raised his flag on it as well. I was about 4 yards inside the box. They hit the pk with ease. So yeah now it is 2-1 with both teams scoring off of PK’s.
The next 15 minutes was a serious pounding match with the visitors pushing every ball forward with long 40 yard clears and the home team really trying to hold possesion deep into the corner. I ran almost 2 miles in just the last 15 minutes of the half. I gave out 3 more yellows in the last 15 minutes as well.
Well it ended 2-1 but it was one of the most challenging games I have had in sometime. It was also the best game I have had in the center this season.
Working games on college campuses adds another level to the heckling from the sideline. This past weekend I had them heckle me, the other team and even their own team a little. It was hard not to laugh at times but you can’t. They even caught me smiling once at one of their jokes in the last moments of a game this weekend.
At a division 1 women’s match this past weekend the fans proved to be the least educated soccer fans of all. We got the classic “Call it both ways”, “Open your eyes”, “Are you kidding with that call” and not to be missed with “your missing a great game”. Come on folks we have heard all of these. We hear these at U12 games. If your going to be a quality crowd your going to have to raise you level of heckling with something a little more witty.
One of the best yells I heard this weekend was from a student girl in her hooters work uniform during the men’s game. “Hey keep your hands off of him, we know he is hot but he is all ours….”. Another peach was when a visiting player lifted his shirt up to wipe his face off from mud he reviled that he had a Velcro strapping around his rib cage to help with an injury. His biggest mistake was doing this in front of the student area. “Hey nice girdle, it is very slimming…”
The visiting women’s team who after their match was watching the men’s match made the mistake of yelling out on a hard foul all at once HEY at the center. But it more or less sounded like “Aaaaaaaaaa”. The home student section ran with that for a good 3-4 minutes with “Hey Fonzie….Aaaaaaaa” giving the double thumbs up sign from the weist height. Classic….these kids even knew who Fonzie was…..
Ok here is the stats from my Garmin 405 this past weekend. Each entery is a half or an overtime period. You will notice they tend to be longer then 45 min. or 10 min. periods. I use my garmin as my running clock during games and my timex as my start and stop watch with a count down. The caleries are based on stats I have entered in and the elvation gain and decline. It should be noted also I am the AR in all 4 games recored here. I typically run between 2.5-3 miles or more per half.
Yeah Yeah I am geek for data…
weekend stats
What a weekend…..The weekend started for me on Thursday evening with a NAIA women’s game. This game was uneventful for the most part with a 4-1 victory. The most lively part of the night was pregame when I called the center and AR1 to see where they were at with 13 minutes left on the pregame clock. They made it on time stuck in traffic and we started on time so it was no big deal. All of us had worked together several times so no really big pregame needed. Actually the pregame was “don’t fu#* up”. Everything was great in the game.
The next day I had to take a half day from work to jump in the car with another official and drive 3 1/2 hours over to do a D1 women’s match. The home team had lost two in a row on the road 6-0 and 6-0 (the schools two biggest loses ever) so we thought they might come out a little pissed off and playing a little higher level game, which they did. This was a great game. We went through double overtime with 0-0 game. Both teams rattled the posts twice each and played tough. Some how we got the game in between lighting storms and played uninterrupted with no rain. The center on the game called a great game I thought. I was really pleased with how the 4 of us worked for the night. My partner and I jumped in the car to drive home that night through storms so we could work our games the next day. 7 hours for 2 hours of soccer….I loved every minute of it actually….
Saturday- I was feeling really good in the morning physically. On the schedule for the day was two more NAIA games. The first was the woman’s team followed by the men’steams. Both games with the same two schools. Well the field is down in this bowl on the campus and we got about 1/2 inch + of rain the night before. When we pulled up they were throwing dirt on the center field after trying to clear all of the standing water. The field was in OK shape considering the amount of rain we decided as we walked the field. We went into the locker room to change and a guy walked in looking like he had just got out of the shower but in his cloths. I gave him a funny look and he said it was dumping outside…..We hustled and got dressed and went out side to a complete downpour with a lot of lighting….The game got postponed about 30 minutes and the field was now a complete mess. Standing water and shoe covering mud.
With about 3 minutes left in the first half we had a big storm roll in. We made it to half time and the storm hit with more lighting then I had seen for sometime. This storm brought even more rain then the first. This one rained for a good hour with lighting the whole time. This delayed the game close to an hour and half. After a wait we got back on the field and played on. This game ended up getting tied up and went on into double overtime with a tie of 1-1 as a final. The game turned out to be really poor soccer in general. I have worked 5A girls games this year that have had higher level soccer but I think the field and weather played a huge role in the game.
Game 2- time for the men’s game. We put 5 minutes on the board for warm up’s because now we were concerned with daylight. It rained on us more but no lighting and the field stayed nasty. I was covered with mud by the end and the home team in white shorts and white tops were not even close to white by the end. Home team did end up winning 3-0. One goal in this match was one of the best shots I have seen in years. It was a rip from 35 yards out to the upper v that keeper got worked on it. The coach for the visitors was the same coach for both teams and by the second half he had really wore thin on us. It is hard to clean the slate off for him with 5 minutes between games for the next team. Especially when in the womens game he yells out that he is getting homered… We end the men’s game with 5 yellows and no reds. At half if you would have asked I would have said there was going to be a red for sure but the score kind of helped calm things down.
Well my legs are a little sore but nothing that bad. I will write about the crowd this week at all three sites. They are worth their own write up.
So today I have NISOA game for NAIA game at 4pm. It should take about 2 hours. My high school assignor schedules me for a 6pm game at a faclity about 2 miles away from the NISOA game. (it was a great center to have the high school). I had accepted the NISOA game over a month ago….My high school assignor thinks I will have enough time….I had to explain there is a chance of overtime.
Well finially I was removed from the game and someone else got the good game. I am excited about the NISOA run I am about to go into….I have a game tonight, one tomorrow and two on Saturday……Lots of NISOA this weekend.
Well good luck on the field this weekend everyone and have a great time.
Alex
Well as I mentioned yesterday I took a U14 boys rec game last night. Both teams had 9 players there until about 2 minutes before the game. I was working with a 15-16 year old AR and the center was probably 22 years old but this was his first season refereeing. The game was difficult to watch at times but worse was standing on the side with the parents. If the sentence didn’t include “boot it” or “Nice boot” it was best not to open your mouth as a parent on that sideline.
Yes this game was worth a grand $10. BUT it did have two big upsides I decided. 1. I helped out my assignor who was in a pinch and that is always good. My assignor is the type that remembers that and will help me when I need game count for example. 2. I got to work with new young officials who wanted to learn asked questions.
The center from the moment I walked up to the field was watching everything I did to prep for this game. he asked for example why I was putting on two watches….His pregame was “do you guys have any questions”…I asked a couple simple questions more or less for my personal understanding of what we had in the center. He then asked me how I work my pregame. I explained the level of the game directs the pregame but I covered the basics.
At half time he wanted to know how it looked. We discussed a PK he called. (for the record there was no way any day I would have called this PK but I didn’t bring that part up.) I explained to him my problem with the PK call was how he called it. Weak whistle, hesitation, look around, and then kind of pointed at the pk mark. He basically showed no confidence on his call. I explained he lost the call in the way he called it. I also mentioned to him to call something in the box he really needed to be in a better spot to call it. He had no angle an assumed a foul happened when a guy went down. He was very receptive to the conversation.
Over all I need to back track a little from what I said yesterday. I really don’t mind working these games if the intent is to help young officials, hell I might even kick the $10 back into the pool to help these young officials show up with correct uniforms. What I guess I really have an issue with is the league sending out mass emails riddled with guilt about uncovered games and how officials need to be professional and step up and cover all games. It’s not the officials fault you don’t pay well…give them a better reason to work these games then just $10.
Alright I know we are not in it for the money …..right? We are not suppose to care about our pay and if we do, we are just jerks. Well every now and then it does matter. It especially matters to my wife…..
Well we get the blast email from the local youth assignor yesterday about how there is not enough referees for toady’s games. Well I had blocked myself out from high school because I had a meeting going to 5pm for work. So needless to say I could work one of the youth rec games that starts at 6:30pm as an AR. I emailed back saying great I will help out. I get assigned to this game and then realize the pay for this game as AR is $10….
The $10 will hardly cover the gas to get there. This was frustrating. BUT if I say something I will be the jerk that is in it for the money…The problem is it leaves me weighing if $10 is worth not hanging out with my son for the evening….What do you guys think?
Last night I was on the line for a 5A girls game. Prior to the game we discussed how much one of the coaches likes to bitch and since I was AR1 I was assigned the task of keeping him quite. (He was not the coach directly behind me so it was a little more difficult. )
He was decent through the game standing up and arguing about a corner that was given instead of what he felt was a goal kick. (The coach was no more then 75 yards away he might of had a good look at it, who knows.) So with about a minute and half left in the game the coaches team is down 3-0 and looking bad. One of her players gets hit hard after the ball is gone and the takes a little extra shot while on the ground from the girl that fouled her. The center lets play go on with a clear advantage but about 10 second later with a dead ball he signals to stop play and goes back and cards the girl that came in late and hard (keep in mind the girl does not play for the coach that loves to complain) In high school you have to go let the coach for the team that received the card know what the card was for. The center comes over to do so and and the coach who’s team received the card says nothing just nods in agreement. The coach that loves to complain and player didn’t get the card stands up and starts to bitch “It is the 90th minute what is the point to that card. You are a waste of our time.” The center gives me a look to quite him down. I turn to the coach and simply say “40 minute halves coach, we are in the 80th minute…” My center busted up laughing and the coach shut up….
Blow Your Whistle 
