Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to the Refs Need Love To podcast, a show that gives you a real, raw and behind the scenes view of one of the hardest jobs on the pitch the referee. I'm your host, david Gerson, a grassroots referee with over 10 years of experience and over 1200 matches under my belt. You can find me at refsneedlovetocom, on Instagram, tiktok and now YouTube. Today we are going on two different referee adventures. These were amazing experiences filled with nothing but love, and I want to share them with you. We'll finish it off with a few letters from the mailbag. First, a New York City experience, and I'm going to tell you what an amazing 24 hours this was.
Speaker 1:
For those who do not know, I actually grew up in New York City. I grew up in Queens, first in Flushing for about 12 years, then Little Neck and Bayside. If you know, the area just right off of the Throgswick Bridge is where I spent the last five years of high school and I had an opportunity to get together with some of my friends from high school, which precipitated this trip. I was actually in Washington DC for a trade show for a few days and I was going to go get together with these buddies from high school, so I had a morning free. So most of my friends live in that area from high school. They're still in the tri-state area and so I needed to come in on Friday night to be able to get together with them Saturday night. And so I reached out to the Eastern New York Referee Association, who governs that area from an assigning standpoint, and they were able to hook. Now I want to say is that this is an amazing experience. I don't know that every single referee is going to be able to have the same type of experience, but I hope that you do that. If you do have some time free and you are going to be in an area of the country and you've got a couple of days, you're a US certified soccer referee. As long as you register into their assigning platform, you can go pretty much referee anywhere in the United States, and I think that is so cool. Whether I'm in Oklahoma or Texas. I've been invited to go referee up in Alaska, which I think it's so cool. But yeah, we can go ref anywhere. As long as we've established that we can work the level of games that they need or you request and you're in good standing with US soccer and safe sport, you can go work anywhere, which is crazy and so cool. And so that's how I came about.
Speaker 1:
Actually getting to ref in New York City was just, I had the time. I proactively, months in advance, reached out saying that I had the time. I proactively, months in advance, reached out saying that I had this time. And obviously they know me, they know my channel, they know that I ref and they were very willing to accommodate me. I don't know the same experience will be for anyone everyone, I should say but I know a ton of referees who traveled to tournaments all across the United States doing ECNL tournaments, mls, next tournaments, you name it big things, dallas Cup, all over the place and they have a blast. So if you have a chance to go mix it up and go someplace else, I highly encourage it. I've done tournaments now in South Carolina, I've done it in Tennessee and I'm really looking forward to doing more going forward. As I age and my kids are in college and I don't have to be here to run them around as much over the summertime. I'm hoping I can do some more of these big tournaments in the future.
Speaker 1:
But back to this New York City experience. I mentioned this on previous podcasts. I think two podcasts ago I talked about that. I was nervous.
Speaker 1:
In leading up to this actual event I was concerned legit concerned about going to ref in New York City, even a place that I grew up. I haven't been there in a long time. I've never refereed there, so that was different. I've been to professional soccer matches in different cities, but at a youth academy level. I really didn't know what to expect. So I would just say I was nervous. Okay, I had been again at a trade show on my feet, walking nonstop for 12 hours a day. The two days previously I was going to be sleeping in a different hotel room, not my own bed. I was worried I wasn't going to get a good night's sleep. When you're traveling, you're not eating the foods that you're used to eating. I was worried that I might have an upset stomach. That's always a concern of mine when I'm traveling. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get to the field on time or there was going to be some type of crazy match control incident with the players or the parents or coach. I had all these fears going into it, but I have to say all of those concerns were completely unfounded.
Speaker 1:
Friday night I took the train from Washington DC to New York City and it was a pleasure. My gosh, what an easy way to travel. I took the Acela on up, it was comfortable, it was smooth, the wifi worked great, got a sandwich on the train, got a ton of work done because I do have a full-time job and so it was wonderful. Got to New York city I think I was. I went to Penn station, if I'm not mistaken, and so hocked in an Uber over to my hotel which not far away, so easy got into my hotel room and I was exhausted. I fell asleep at 10 PM. I set my alarm for 6 AM the next morning, 5 AM next morning. Thankfully, I did sleep the whole night and, man, I popped out of bed, I was up, I was ready, I was like all right, I'm in New York city, I'm sure there's a place to get breakfast. So I start go down the elevator out of my hotel.
Speaker 1:
Let me tell you, the only people walking around New York City especially by the port authority, if New York City at 5 am or 5.30 am, are either delivery guys and gals who are delivering supplies to different stores, or people who are high on drugs, or maybe they're homeless and look and I have nothing against the homeless. Sometimes they can be a little bit disconcerting if there's not a lot of light out. They're just like they're coming up to you, so you're just walking by. There was a bit sketchy out there. No issues, it's New York City, one block in any direction. You're going to find a good deli called like a bodega, a little grocery store or something like that. Got myself a little breakfast water, gatorade, all good, had a wonderful little start to the day. So get back to my hotel room, eat it up. And I had plenty of time. I had budgeted that if I left my hotel at 7am that I would have no problem getting to the field at 8.30. My game, my first kickoff, was at 9.30 and I had mapped it out to give myself a good hour and a half. If you're not familiar with New York City you're like wait a second, you're roughing in New York City and you gave yourself an hour and a half to get there.
Speaker 1:
Let me set the scene. New York City is unlike pretty much any other American city. It is a series of islands. Normally when we think about New York City you think about Manhattan. That's one of the five boroughs, but you've got Manhattan, you've got the Bronx, you've got Queens, you've got Queens, and Brooklyn are attached, and then you've got Staten Island and they're connected by bridges and tunnels. Those are the five boroughs of New York City when we think about New York City, but there's actually other islands as well. You've got Roosevelt Island, obviously, ellis Island, where the Statue of Liberty is, but there's also an island called Randall's Island.
Speaker 1:
Now I just want to say, for the record, I've never been to any of those islands in New York City, even though I grew up there ever, and I've not been to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty. I've rode the Staten Island Ferry plenty of times, I've seen it. What is there to do? Yes, I know I should go. I know I should go to Ellis Island. I'm a child of immigrants. I should do that, but I haven't. So the only thing I knew about Randall's Island was that it had a massive mental hospital and psychiatric facility, and you can see it. It's a gigantic, really tall building and I've driven by it literally thousands of times going to Manhattan or the Bronx as a kid, but I've never been there at all. But since I've left New York and I've left New York about 25 years ago.
Speaker 1:
Randall's Island has now transformed into an absolutely beautiful sports complex and park. There are over 75, probably 80 different athletic fields at this island. Now it still has a giant psychiatric hospital and it houses thousands of undocumented immigrants who are waiting for asylum or simply need housing. But it has some of the most picturesque and beautiful baseball, football and soccer fields you will ever see in your life and man, I've seen pictures on like Instagram of like fields and like the Falkland Islands or something like that, or in Greenland, where it's like this little small pitch and surrounded by oceans and mountains. I will tell you that the pitches at Randall's Island maybe some of the most beautiful I've ever seen in my world. Now they don't necessarily have. They do have a stadium, a soccer stadium on the island. I didn't go in there and I know that's right on the river too, so I'm sure that it's absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 1:
But the fields I were working on were literally adjacent to a massive rushing river and I'm not talking a creek. The East river and the Hudson river are gigantic. They are swift moving and, since I've left New York city for 30 years ago, actually smell good. They're not nasty. They used to be disgusting, like literally I would never fish out of there because the fish would be toxic and glowing. But now there were like a hundred fishermen like lined up on the shore, fishermen, official ladies, fisher people out there fishing because it's gorgeous and hard rushing water out there. Literally the area right along the rocks there they call hell's gate because it's where kind of the Long Island sound and I believe the East river come together and it's like beautiful rushing water. It is amazing.
Speaker 1:
The pitches most of the pitches I would say they've got beautiful turf on down. They're very well maintained. And then above the pitches there are bridges. So there's one that's a massive train bridge or another one a massive car bridge, and the day I was there it was blue skies with little fluffy, little white clouds and it was like 75 degrees and a little windy. It was gore, just man. They even had clean bathrooms, clean public bathrooms in new york city, people surrounded with flowers and butterfly gardens. My gosh, it was like referee heaven. Honestly, I felt like there was a soundtrack in my mind, a movie that I was experiencing Now again back to this hour and a half.
Speaker 1:
So they don't make it easy to get to this place. Maybe that's why it's so beautiful. It's really hard to get to, even though I was only staying five miles away in Midtown Manhattan. The island of Manhattan is about seven miles long and this is at the very top of the island. I had to take one subway, cross town to get to another subway to go uptown and then take a bus in Harlem to go over the bridge to get me to Randall's Island. So five miles took me about an hour and 20 minutes on the subway and the bus. But again, great experience. I had a wonderful time chatting it up with an umpire while we were waiting for the bus and then we got on the bus. But again, great experience. I had a wonderful time chatting it up with an umpire while we were waiting for the bus and then we got on the bus. It was really cool. He was setting out for games too. It was great for all that sacrifice in terms of travel.
Speaker 1:
It's not easy to get there. You get rewarded with a beautiful place to play or referee docker or baseball or softball or football, or whatever you're doing. It's fantastic. I love it. So I get to the field at 830. I find my spot. I've given myself a full hour to walk around take pictures, soak in the atmosphere, at the pitches. There were some games going on before mine and I get a phone call. So I'm literally right there on the edge of the East river, overlooking the Island of Manhattan and all the buildings there across the river. It was so gorgeous. But I get a phone call from our director of state instruction in Georgia and he is a wonderful man. I have tremendous amount of respect for him. He called me to let me know Now.
Speaker 1:
I briefly mentioned this on my past podcast, but officially I was getting my certification as a referee mentor. That's right. It took me almost nine months or 10 months, but I finally completed all of the assignments the on-field, the video, the feedback, mentoring, whatnot the online tests, designing my own training sessions, putting together the PowerPoints all of that stuff. I am now officially a referee mentor. So I got that news standing there in the most beautiful place I could possibly imagine for soccer. It was so cool, so cool, so thrilled. So I just wanted to mention that next season I'm going to split my time about 50% towards being a referee on the pitch and 50% towards recruiting, developing and retaining referees in my state as a mentor. I'm really excited about that. All right now back to the pitch. So, as I mentioned, the Eastern New York Referees Association really went out of their way to set me up with a few matches and that met my schedule. So I only had to ref from about 8 am to 8am to about 2pm that afternoon before I needed to go back to my hotel and get together with my high school buddies. And man did they hook me. They put me together with probably the best crew you can imagine.
Speaker 1:
Two of the last couple referees young referees of the year was my two referees making our crew on the day. Young woman first Jenna is a rising senior in college. She plans on being a lawyer. She's currently interning in a probate lawyer office right now. My gosh, adham, is a rising senior in college as well. He's planning to be a doctor. He's taking the MCAT courses right now.
Speaker 1:
Just to say that I was impressed with these two young adults is putting it mildly. Mind you, I was back for getting together with some of my high school friends and when I was in high school, my gosh, I think I slept through more high school than I was awake, for I was social, but I was not a good student at all. I barely made it through high school and my early couple years of college. So to meet these two young people who were so driven and so well put together and so mature for their age was just unbelievable. And again, as referees, working as referees, using it as a job to get through college and pay for college and pay for college and life as college was so cool. They were unbelievable. And not only do they represent their region well they're in Eastern New York and New York City but they represent their families well and I can only imagine how proud Adahan's parents are.
Speaker 1:
But I actually got to meet Jenna's parents. Her mom drove her and they're both from out on Long Island, so it's about an hour drive to get to Randall's Island. Turns out, jenna actually shares a car with her twin sister who is also a referee. Oh and, by the way, they also have a younger sister who's also a referee. So the twin sister and the younger referee were out on Long Island using the car to get to their matches. So her mother drove her to come referee with me on Randall's Island. And yes, her mother is very proud of her daughter. But you can tell how wonderful and strong. Her mother is as well. Jenna comes from a great family very strong, very intelligent women just so cool. I got to hang out and chat with her.
Speaker 1:
The only thing I regret about the whole day with Jenna is that I only got to see her as an assistant referee. We only had two matches together and the first match out of hand was the center and I centered the second one. She is probably five foot three, five foot four, but you can feel her confidence, you can feel her presence. She's just so intelligent and so strong. I wish I would have had an opportunity to see her out there on the pitch. Seriously, she could pass for 15 years old, even though she's 21,. But you can just tell this is a woman who is going to be extremely successful in life on the pitch and off the pitch. So cool and so great that I got to spend time with them.
Speaker 1:
So I will tell you other fears that I had going into the day. I was fearing that I was going to have a hard time connecting with the coaches or parents and players in New York City. Somehow I built it up in my head Again, building it up in your head. It's the common theme here that it was going to be more difficult or more confrontational than the people I normally deal with in Georgia. Again, I couldn't be more wrong. These people did not know who I was, but I found the parents to be exceptionally well-behaved. The coaches were gracious. I never experienced a single outburst of verbal abuse toward any of the officials, whether it was on my match or the referees who were working the match before that. I watched Players were normal teenagers, even depending on some of the teams where they may not speak a lot of English. On that team maybe it was Spanish or maybe it was some Korean. There was still great kids and, yes, kids might get disappointed about a call, just like anyone else their age, but there were no problems out there and I didn't experience anything bad either.
Speaker 1:
I will say one odd thing. There were a couple of odd things. The fields didn't have corner flag. That I thought was bizarre. I guess they don't have any place to store them there on Randall's Island the goals are locked down but they don't bring corner flags to the field. That was odd, something to get used to there. Maybe it's too hard to carry them on public transportation or something. I have no idea.
Speaker 1:
And then the other thing that was interesting about the games is it seems all of the games that the referees do, there are cash in advance, everything, and I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't bring a lot of bills like for change. You got to have your Venmo or PayPal because you may need to coach, may have two bigger bills to be able to break down for the teams, or when you're trying to split up the payments between the referees, you may have to be like all right, I'll Venmo you $10 to even it out. So that is. It was different for me. I get it and I think that the teenagers love having cash in hand. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:
I worked two games. The first game I was an assistant referee. It was under 14 Academy Again, piece of cake ended two to one. Again, coaches were great, parents were fine. It was wonderful. My second game I was the referee for an under 15 Academy match Again, great game could have gone either way.
Speaker 1:
I only had two yellow cards the entire match. But two yellow cards were on the same kid. He was playing in the midfield. His team was winning late in the game. We were playing two 40-minute halves. In the 68th minute he had a slide tackle from behind, breaking up, kind of a counterattack. This was not a last man situation. He had defenders behind him but he was trailing the play and he slid from behind. He had a little bit of ball but a lot of man took him down and as a clear yellow card. You know, reckless challenge. I wouldn't necessarily call it Spock, they didn't have a lot of options with him or anything like that. Wasn't green space in front, reckless challenge, yellow card, simple, no issue.
Speaker 1:
And then, literally three minutes later, I yellow carded him, the first one in the 68th minute, 71st minute. Somehow he's out like on the wing and a player is running at him and this guy is about to skin him. Just run right by and he just sticks out his leg and kid goes flying, like really he's about to get by him and he kicks out and trips. The kid goes forward like flying, almost like a somersault flying, like it was a pretty hard foul and it was definitely stopping a promising attack on this one. There's no doubt he had green space in front of him. He had someone to pass through in the middle, like it's clear, and it's like it was so obvious you could see the look on this kid's face, and everyone around knew the same thing as well. So could I have gotten away with just giving him a final stern warning? Yeah, I could have, but I also felt like this one was so unbelievably clear and obvious to every single person on the field. By not showing the yellow card there, I really would have potential causing myself other credibility problems if someone else did something like that later in the match because it was starting to get heated.
Speaker 1:
At that moment you're in the last 10 minutes. Everyone starts pressing. He knew it too, the kid. As soon as he did it, as soon as he looked back at me and he started walking to the side, immediately pulled out my second yellow and showed him the red. And no one argued the call. Some parents were griping about it. Oh, oh, come on, ref, come on. But come on If you're being honest with yourself, with the right decision, definitely so. At the end of the match I had.
Speaker 1:
It usually happens People might not recognize me before the match, but during the match, when they hear my voice, they wind up knowing me and they will whisper to each other oh, is that the TikTok ref? So that came up. Are you the referee from TikTok? And as soon as I said yes, yeah, refs need love too, they start like mobbing me and asking me for pictures and autographs. It was really fun. I called the kid over that I red carded, I gave, I said hey, this is for you, like the red card. And I asked him his name and I autographed it for him and I wrote a little note. It said you earned it, with a little exclamation point love and respect Gerson. And everyone thought it was hilarious. I gave out like my other yellow card, but we had so much fun took pictures.
Speaker 1:
Eventually it was time to say my goodbyes, not only to the players. I met some other refs who were reffing on other fields to say goodbye my fellow referees that day, jenna and Adahan. They were wonderful. So much fun, fun. Everything worked out great and earned myself 150 bucks of spending money. Not bad, hey, for a couple hours of work running around in New York City. So that was nice.
Speaker 1:
So I decided to have another adventure. As opposed to trying to do the bus and the subways back, I wanted to see a little more of the city, so I walked from my pitch on the southern end of Randall's Island to one of the pedestrian bridges, so probably about two miles to get back to Manhattan over the river taking pictures. It was so beautiful. I already ran seven miles that morning so my feet were sore. So once I got back to Manhattan then I called myself an Uber and as I'm taking an Uber back towards my hotel, I see a street fair and I love a street fair. I was like, hey, driver, you stop here, I hop out. I'm walking around the street fair and, kid you not, I'm walking around, I'm wearing my black like us soccer dry fit shirt and my referee shorts and referee socks and shoes and stuff. And a teenager comes running up to me. He's like, hey, are you the ref from TikTok? And I'm like, yeah, he's like, I'm a big fan, so I take a picture with him. And as I do this, his family walks over mother, father, two girls and we start talking and I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm back in New York, I'm just reffing some games. I grew up here. And he's like, oh, where'd you grow up? And I'm like, oh, I grew up in Bayside. And I'm like, oh, I went to Cardozo. He's I went to Cardozo. This is a true story, I'm not making this up. He then says I graduated in 93. I go, dude, I graduated in 93.
Speaker 1:
As a complete freak occurrence, I met someone randomly in New York city. I'm there in New York city walking around for I don't know an hour and I met someone that I actually went to high school with. Now, mind you, there were 1100 kids in my high school class, so I didn't know everyone in my high school class. I got his information, we exchanged it like DMS, whatnot, and this guy yes, absolutely, he went to high school with me. My gosh, when I looked at my high school yearbook when I got home on Sunday night, his son is a spitting image of of when he was in high school. It was crazy. What are the chances of that Me walking around New York city being recognized as like the TikTok ref and then meeting someone that I literally went to high school with which is absolutely bananas Went back to my hotel, met up with some of my friends oh my gosh, wait, hang on.
Speaker 1:
Before I got back to my hotel. I wanted to go back to my hotel. I hopped on another subway, unfortunately went the wrong direction, ended up in Queens, which should have taken me 10 minutes to get back to my hotel. Why ended up taking me another hour. So crazy, crazy. I'll just wrap this up in saying that that night I got to connect with some of my best friends from high school. A couple of my buddies we see each other at least once a year. Some other folks I haven't seen in almost literally 30 years since I graduated high school. I think we might've seen each other at a wedding, like 25 years ago, something like that, but, man, I covered over 34,000 steps that day.
Speaker 1:
I started up at 5 AM. I didn't make it back to my hotel room until 1 45 AM the next morning and it was just an amazing experience and I'm so thankful for it. All right, real quick. One last little story and then we'll get to the mailbag. So that was a week and a half ago.
Speaker 1:
And then two nights ago I got to go to the opening match of the Copa America to see Messi and Argentina play Canada. Yes, I was gifted tickets from Powerade. What an amazing thing. I could not believe. This is, honestly, the dream of this channel is that somehow maybe I'll get World Cup tickets when World Cup starts coming to town in 2026. But yes, got invited to town in 2026.
Speaker 1:
But yes, got invited to go to the match and I said to Jacob is we needed to take some pictures and video and like tag powerade in it but the thank you. And I was like, do we need to wear a referee kit? And then we decided not only are going to wear our referee kit, but we're also going to make up signs saying refs need love too. And no referee, no party party. And that second one's not original to me. I saw someone do that and in europe at the euros, and I was like, oh my gosh, we have to do that man. Let me tell you we were a little apprehensive about wearing our referee kit, but we experienced nothing but love. We took pictures with literally hundreds not overestimating hundreds of fans, like as soon as we got out of the car.
Speaker 1:
Outside the stadium, we were interviewed by media who were doing live broadcasts in seven or eight different countries, like venezuela, bolivia, ecuador, argentina, brazil, you name it. It was insane. It was so cool. We got up on the big screen, the jumbotron, and the crowd went nuts when they saw us. It was so cool. We had referees seek us out outside the stadium. Inside the stadium we had someone who was sitting in the upper deck. We were on the lower level, upper deck, other corner of the stadium, like literally, two referees from Knoxville, two teenagers, literally sought us out to take pictures with us during the match. It was so cool, oh my gosh. Loved everything about it and I can't wait to go to another match wearing our referee kit because it was such an absolute blast.
Speaker 1:
All right, as a side note on the match itself, before we get to the mailbag, I will say a couple of things. It's amazing to see Lionel Messi in person. He is so much faster and yet so much slower than every other person on the pitch. And when I say slower, yes, we know that he walks around and chooses moments, but he sees the game differently. If you see his assist that he had on Thursday night to score the second goal of the match, he's really the only person who can do that and he does it so consistently amazing.
Speaker 1:
One other thing to note I love how in the Euros right now, if you're watching the Euros, that they have a rule where only the captain talks to the referee and you can't crowd the referee. That's not happening in CONMEBOL for the Copa America. Literally, it felt like the entire teams were surrounding the referee and the referee was having to get agitated and angry and yell at the players. It's just so unprofessional. It just doesn't look good. It doesn't help anyone, all right, that being said, overall these last two weeks I've had these amazing referee experiences. I am so thankful. I had so much fun, felt nothing but love, and I highly encourage you to try and find a referee adventure in your future, whether it's abroad, through those organizations like Referee Abroad, or maybe it's another state, or maybe you're on vacation and decide, hey, I'm going to pick up some matches on a Saturday while I'm here. I highly encourage you to do that. Just plan ahead.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I got two letters from the mailbag and then we will wrap up today's podcast. This one came in and I'm going to treat it anonymously. It is based on a U10 match and the referee writes and before I get into this, u10, dude, what is up with U10? I think I've mentioned this in this podcast before. Dude, u10, parents are freaking insane. U10 coaches are freaking insane, but really the parents are freaking insane and these coaches are freaking insane. But really the parents are freaking insane. And these kids are so impressionable at this age, at eight years old and nine years old, my gosh. Okay, here's his note he writes let me know if you think I handled this correctly, please.
Speaker 1:
There was a collision on their offensive side, so I'm assuming on the attacking team side. A parent's son was involved and stayed on the ground for a little while but then got up and continued playing. So it looks like there was a collision on the pitch and kid laid down for a little bit, got up and continued playing. Referee says I stopped play to check on the kids and the parent came over, turns the corner and starts walking on the field yelling at me. Okay, so we have a parent walking on the field yelling at a referee. Quote. That was a dangerous play. That's a foul. Unquote. I told him to go back to the sideline and then told the coach. If he says anything else, it's going to be a yellow card to the coach. Everything else went good in the game. Then, after the game, I was sitting in my chair and he walks right behind me saying quote. That's how kids get hurt. You're f*cking terrible at your job. You should not be a ref. Go learn how to do this job correctly, because someone could have gotten hurt. Unquote.
Speaker 1:
There was another ref at the field next to mine that I went to go ask what I should do. She saw the whole incident on the field and even said it wasn't a foul. Me and her went to a nearby field marshal and he just said to go to the tournament headquarters. I had a game coming up so I didn't do anything until after the game. But before my game started I spotted the coach up. So I didn't do anything until after the game. But before my game started I spotted the coach, the other ref and I went up and said that I could have given the coach a red card, but he's going to go talk to the parent about his action. He was very sorry. Both me and the female ref agreed on the decision. So I'm just going to stop right there and let's talk about this, because he did ask did I handle this correctly?
Speaker 1:
Okay, parents, especially for young kids, eight, nine man they freak out when something happens to their child, but it does not give them permission to come onto the field because that could create a really dangerous situation. So let's, and people are like, how could that be a dangerous situation? I've seen it. Okay, two kids collision on the field and both parents come onto the field and then one parent starts yelling at the other parent because they think that their kid fouled their kid or tried to hurt their kid and all of a sudden you have a fight. Or you have a parent that comes onto the field and then they start yelling at the referee like what we have here. And not every parent can get back out of that red mist, reptilian brain if they feel the referee is somehow involved in their child being hurt. Parents can never, ever come onto the field of play Ever.
Speaker 1:
So when we have someone who's angry and they come onto the field of play, no, I'm not going to go up and confront them, but, man, I'm going to immediately get that coach and I'm I'm like, coach, you need to get that person off the field and afterwards you need to go tell the parents right now that no one comes on to the field of play. Okay, I'm not about to yellow card the coach for that parent coming on like I need the coach to assert back some match control and set expectations during the match so I can't have it happen again, okay? So let's just say that's. If that happens to you, go talk to the coach and make sure that they warn the parent. No one comes onto the field at any time unless beckoned onto the field by the referee. That's it, because it is a match control and safety issue and I've seen it go really bad.
Speaker 1:
Now let's go to this incident after the match. Okay, he says to the referee I'm going to quote one more time, I'm not trying to use profane language, just for fun. But he says he's yelling at me. He comes right behind the referee. Okay, that's how kids get hurt. You're f*cking terrible at your job. You should not be a ref. Go learn how to do this job correctly, because someone else could have gotten hurt. Okay, now I'm assuming matches over and again with a parent we don't red card parent but I don't feel good enough just reporting this to the coach because that's all that's happened at this point. That's it. He had another game coming up.
Speaker 1:
We have got to report this behavior to the league, the state and at some point when does this become a safe sport issue? When you've got a referee at the field and I don't know if this is a teenager here, but being threatened by a parent on the pitch, and that's a safety issue, just like we're trained to report safety issues when we see a child getting threatened out there. If this was a teenage referee, I've got a safe sport issue on my hands. But I'm not going to just go to a tournament headquarters when I've got an issue like this. We have got to report this to the league and to the state so that the state can take action on this team. It must be reported.
Speaker 1:
This parent can't just do this to people over and over again and nothing gets done about it. This parent may have done this to someone else earlier in the year, but now that they actually have a second offense reported now, they may actually ban a second offense reported now. They may actually ban this parent from coming to the field because obviously they don't know how to behave themselves at a youth sporting event. But if we don't report this behavior it will just go on and on, because I'm assuming this ref didn't say anything back. Of course, because they're actually a stable, responsible person and knows how to deal with other humans. They're not going to inflame the situation. So this guy says this to this person and he gets away with it. Essentially, he's permitted to be nasty and abusive and threatening and verbally abuse this referee. We have got to report this stuff, people. So please, if this happens to you. Don't let it go with just reporting it to a coach and oh, they're going to talk to that parent. Please, we need to report this to the proper authorities so this can be documented, okay, and that we can demonstrate a pattern of behavior, that they've done it this time. Let me tell you they've done it another time. Now let's finish on a positive Okay.
Speaker 1:
This comes in another one from the mailbag Steve Wilkes. He's 53 years old and I love this like pure mind. Now I'm only 49, but I'm not far from 50,. But Steve writes David, keep up the great, informative videos. I use them a lot when educated new refs and coaches.
Speaker 1:
I'm entering my sixth year of officiating soccer games. I pushed myself and applied to referee for college. I have reffed USSF, mshsa, which I'm assuming, high school, npl, mrl, ecnl, state Cup and President's Cup, and I am a USSF certified referee, coach and mentor. It is a family roughing thing, as my daughter is in her seventh year of USSF and now second year of roughing high school with me. She's no longer playing college goalkeeper anymore and my high school son is in his third year of USSF. I did it, you're right. My application was approved and I just passed the NCAA College Soccer Referee Physical Performance Test.
Speaker 1:
The NSOA fitness test comprises two parts sprints and interval runs. You do six 40 meter sprints in under nine seconds. There's 60 yards to 40 meters and then intervals of 20 by 150 meter runs in 45 seconds, followed by a 50 meter walk for 45 seconds, and you do that for 2.5 miles. No time or distance adjustments given for age. Okay. So again, I should say and I'm going to stop right here in the message that when we older refs do these fitness tests, normally most of the refs out there doing it are in their 20s, young 20s or high teens, whatnot. It is very rare to see someone in their 40s no less 53, doing this.
Speaker 1:
He continues the test, kicked my butt and luckily my knee held up through the test. I was in a lot of pain. I probably way overdid the stress on my knee on the last lap. Tears of pain and tears of joy coming down his face, but I wanted this achievement too much. Now it's time to relax, use lots of ice packs and prepare for medical meniscus repair surgery on Friday. That's right, he literally did the fitness test the week. He is getting meniscus surgery on his knee After several weeks of rest and rehab. I'll start officiating college games in August, club and junior college and in addition to AA Missouri High School soccer game. Another bucket list item checked off new college uniforms already received. Keep up the great work and I hope to see you on the pitch someday. Brian Barlow offside he writes was in St Louis last year at the State Cubs Championships and so I just want to say thank you, steve, and I will say, a few weeks after he sent me this or that week, he literally sent me a picture of his knee after knee surgery and I'm thrilled to report that his knee surgery went really well. His rehabilitation is going very smoothly and he's looking forward to getting out on the pitch very soon with his two teenage children, who also referee.
Speaker 1:
I love that. I just love that Again. I just think it's so cool for Steve and for all of us as older referees. I will just say, or people who got into this late, I wish I would have started when I was 20, but I didn't. So I'm doing the best I can right now and I'm working as hard as I can to stay fit, to be able to do what I can on the weekend, to try and move up and do higher level games. I just think it's so admirable. A buddy of mine, joey if you're listening to this, joey Widener he's at regionals right now, his first time going to regionals. He is also, I think, 51 years old and he just got his regional badge at 51 years old man. That is believable, unbelievable to me. The game count, the assessments, the fitness man that you need at this age to be able to do that is so admirable, just so impressed, just so impressed, so unbelievably impressed. I hope you guys enjoyed today's podcast.
Speaker 1:
I think oftentimes, as a referee, it can feel lonely and isolated. I also think it's important for every referee to know that you're not alone. You are part of a massive club, fraternity order, whatever you want to call it. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who have gone through what you've gone through, that go through what you go through, and they share a common experience. As a referee, you can pretty much probably go anywhere in the world and immediately connect with other referees as soon as you meet each other. It's just what it is. We all have that same type of thing in common. I would also say these same people who are attracted to being a referee usually share a similar set of purpose and values and kindness. I find that 99% of referees are some of the most wonderful members of society you will ever find anywhere on earth. Again, they're kind, they're fair. They're the kind of people that you would be lucky to call your friend.
Speaker 1:
If you liked today's pod, please share it with all of your friends and family. Definitely every referee Heck even. Share it to your enemies. They could probably benefit and become better people if you send it to them. Just kidding about that one. Check out my channels on Instagram, TikTok, youtube If you want to start watching these podcasts or video. You can see my weird faces that I make as I try to talk through this stuff. I try and post those videos up there for you guys to see. If you want to send me a message and tell me your story, please send it to roughsneedloveto at gmailcom. I read every single note sent my way, even if it may take me a while to get to it. Know that I care about you. You are loved, as always. I wish you well in whatever adventure is ahead of you, both on and off the pitch, and, of course, I hope your next match is red card free.
