Psycho Parents of the Week

How about psycho coaches? Can we post those here too?

Stay tuned - my kid is refereeing this weekend. She should have some good tournament psycho parent stories by Sunday!
I get a kick being on the sidelines while she is the AR - listening to parents is hilarious when they're not your own team or opponents.

Coaches - most definitely.  For the most part, coaches won't yell at the AR - just the center - although she's had one NASA coach unleash on her and the other AR.  Mind you this was U11 Academy regular season game so not sure what got that coach's panties in a wad.  She and the other AR missed one or two offside calls.  Even the most experienced refs miss one or two and neither of the ones missed resulted in a score so NASA coach needs to take a chill pill and sit down.

On the parents side, honestly I worry more about my daughter turning around and unleashing on a few dumb parents more than I worry about them harassing her.  Like her mama, she's sometimes lacking a filter and I can just see her turning to someone and telling them to sit down and shut up.  Hopefully with enough authority that they'll do it but I doubt that so I tell her not to engage the parents - ever!

She prefers Rec to Academy right now (she only started the AR gig this spring so she needs more experience) But she says at least those parents know what they don't know and don't feel so vested in every single game.  We both laugh at the intensity of Academy parents - I'm sure I was that way back in the day and I'd have loved for the older me to have time traveled back to tell the younger more uptight me that it doesn't matter at that age.  It really honestly does not matter until the games start at U13.  Get the skills before then so you can get on a good U13 team but until that whistle blows for the first Classic or Athena game, sit down and shut up!

A little surprised at this. Where I am, the club does a fairly good job of getting the Academy parents to behave. It's the rec games where we have problems.

I'm sure it depends on age and gender - and level of the team.  The U11 Girls and Boys Academy parents were awful.  Supposedly these were the 'top' Academy teams in the age group - not that 'top' matters until late U12/U13 but these folks were all caught up in winning and whether losing would hurt their rankings.

The U12 boys Rec parents were super laid back.  I actually had a nice sideline chat with several of their parents.  They saw this lone person sitting on their sidelines and came up to ask which one was my son.  I laughed and said - the girl who is your AR.  One of the dads was really interested in learning how she became a ref so young.  I think clubs forget about older age Rec players and don't always communicate all that they do with the Select/Athena teams.  THis dad never heard of the ref classes so I emailed him the link and he thanked me and said he was going to sign his son up.  We're hurting for referees - so bring it on!

Jack that's awesome!  I hope she gets some assignments and enjoys it -I know she'll enjoy the paycheck!  It's really good money for a kid this age and keeps them involved with soccer.

Did you get to meet the assignor for your club?  If not, try to contact him or her and see if they're having an orientation meeting or refresher course before the season starts.  The assignor, Lou, at NASA is great - he met with a bunch of the new R9's in January at a refresher course and really set their minds at ease by telling them he would not throw them into anything they weren't ready to handle.  At another club, a friend of my daughter's got put out as center for a younger team with some really weird rules no goalies, no throw ins, etc. and she was turned off refereeing completely - hasn't every done it again. 

It's important that your daughter's first job is one that will make her want to continue so definitely try to get in contact with the assignor at your club or other local clubs in your area.  This will be my daughter's first time working a tournament - (NASA Girls) and we've also signed up to work the NASA boys tournament next weekend.  They may still have positions open and that is the assignor I mentioned above so you should sign her up and put in the notes she's a first timer.  Lou will make sure she's with seasoned refs to work with her.

Good luck and good for her for giving this a try.  (You'll also get a kick watching from the sidelines for a bit - bet you'll come back with a few psycho parent stories afterwards LOL)

UFA Norcross Referee Assignor try Mike Wright refereeadmin@nsafury.org

UFA Referee Assignor is Linda Hughes  ref_assignor@yahoo.com

I agree that parents should keep themselves under control. But I also believe that atrocious officiating should be managed in some way. I witnessed some pretty poor youth soccer refereeing performances this weekend. It was not just missed calls and/or obviously wrong calls. It was game management that put players at risk. This is even worse coming from officials who seem to be a dangerous combination of marginally competent and arrogant.

In any tournament and at regular season games at most parks with multiple fields, if you see officiating that is bordering on dangerous the players, you can go find a field marshall or go to the referee's station and ask that someone come monitor your game.  I know when my kid refs at NASA - there are multiple 'floaters' there to cover if someone doesn't show or - worst case scenario - if a ref has to be removed.

Years ago at a UFA tournament, we had a very young center ref (too young in fact - the girls were bigger than he was).  He was obviously in over his head and allowed some really blatant fouls on both sides so it was just a matter of time before someone got hurt.  Two sets of parents from both teams approached the head referee at the tournament desk and asked that our ref be monitored.  He was removed by the half and replaced with a referee who was better equipped to handle the game.  In our case, it was inexperience more than incompetance however, I've seen some really bad refereeing from supposedly 'experienced' referees too.  If you ask (nicely) that a ref be watched, be prepared to explain logically why - not just that you feel it's one sided against your team - multiple missed calls resulting in scores or fouls are good reasons

And you can always take the ref class and become a referee yourself - there's a shortage and the only way to remove bad referees entirely is to have a pool of better ones to replace them with.