Letter to a Young Referee

Last time I saw you, you were near tears at the end of an Area tournament game. It was the last time I saw you, because you didn't come back this season. I'm very sad about that. AYSO is the poorer for your leaving. I keep feeling that there is something I could have done or said that would have helped. This letter is about trying to put that right.

I'd run line for you in that playoff game that ended with you and one sideline so very unhappy with each other. That team (players, coaches and parents) had been upset that you had not given a penalty towards the end of the game when one of their forwards had gone down in the area on a breakaway. You called it the other way. They did not get the win that would have seen them through to the next round. And, despite the strongest pressure I could bring to bear, they made sure you knew just who they thought was responsible.

At the time, after the game, I told you not to take it personally ("it happens to all of us"), and that I thought you'd called a good game, including the disputed call. You weren't having any of it. "I know I called a good game!", you blazed back at me. "I've been playing soccer for years. I know what I'm doing -- I've ref'd a lot! They just think they can do this to me because I'm a girl!" In the end, you calmed down, you even smiled, and you finished out the tournament, which took strength. But you're not here this year, so in the end it wasn't all right. What I said at the time was right as far as it went, but it left something very important unsaid. Perhaps that's why you didn't believe any of it.

But it does happen to all of us! I'm neither young nor female - I'm nearly 50, I've been refereeing for ten years and I have the gray hair and the heavy badge to prove it. But still, there are games when I leave the field knowing that one or both teams are disappointed with me. Sometimes they are courteous and polite (and, oddly enough, these are the ones that bother me the most); sometimes (despite all AYSO's urging to the contrary) they are not. Sometimes I think it's because I had a bad game; sometimes I think the team(s) would have been unhappy no matter what I did. But I get better over time, slowly, and I console myself with the thought that sometimes the teams aren't happy with themselves either.

And I did think you'd called a good game. Referees like you who have played the game since a young age and who continue to play it as teenagers have a feel for what's important to the players that people like me, who came to it as adults, have to struggle to get. You were right on the disputed penalty -- the attacker had pushed off the defender before tripping and falling. I doubt that any of the adults on the sideline even knew to look for this. But you did.

But what I didn't say is that there was something that you didn't do that undermined you from the start -- that almost guaranteed that there'd be dissent as soon as you had to make a critical decision. You didn't act as if you really believed in yourself as a referee. You didn't communicate to others that they should believe in you -- that you were competent and serious about what you were doing. There were lots of little signs of this, and three big ones:

1. You came to the field without your badge. Your uniform was correct and complete - there were no odd socks, weird hats, off color shorts, or anything like that. But the badge was missing - lost, in the laundry, wherever. When you met the coaches, their first (unspoken) question about you ("Is this person a qualified, trained, competent ref or is the host region just desperate for bodies in black?") went unanswered.
2. You didn't stay close to play. Not because you couldn't (the soccer you play is played at a much faster pace than this game), but perhaps because it wouldn't look "cool" (my slang, not yours, I know) to be working that hard? So you never looked as if all of your attention was focused on the play. You walked when you should have jogged and jogged when you should have run. You were 35 yards off the fateful play in the area. You'll reply that you "got it right", and indeed you did, but you didn't get it believed, partly because you weren't much closer to the play than the spectators were.
3. Your whistle was faint. Your signals were given slowly, often after you'd walked over from some distance away, with limp gestures (arm below the shoulder) that suggested uncertainty and doubt. Not because you were uncertain, I'm sure, but perhaps because doing it by the book (quick, crisp, definite) just looks so… "fussy"! Why worry about all that if, in the end, the call is right?

Well, you found out why. At the critical moment (bodies down in the penalty area), your call or non-call turns a tense, ambiguous situation into triumph or disaster for someone. There is a tiny interval during which the players and spectators of the team that has had the call go against them will decide what they think. They so much want to believe that it hasn't really gone against them. If it has, they really want to believe that it wasn't their fault. It'll come down to "we blew it" or "the ref blew it". If you've given them any reason to doubt you, their opinion will crystallize against you in a flash.

Why would they doubt you? Well, they'll certainly doubt you if you've already made a bunch of obviously bad calls. That wasn't your problem. But they'll also harbor doubt if your approach to the game does not communicate that you are taking it seriously. Your dress, your manner, your level of attention to play, and your apparent confidence and firmness on routine decisions all contribute. By crisis time, if one ever comes, you will have established a reserve of authority to draw on. Or not.

Yes, the gray hairs do help. And yes, being young and female probably does make it harder, at least with some folks. But all referees have to work to establish their authority on the field, every game. Part of this is behaving in a way that communicates your seriousness about what you're doing. And this you simply didn't do. No one could have gotten such a close, critical call accepted after having approached the game as casually as you seemed to. If you want to be accepted as an authority figure, you have to act like one.

This is very, very hard for teenage referees. The defining issue of teenage life is casting off (some of) the rules and authority of parents and other adults and exploring other ways of living. Turning into an authority figure yourself for a few hours on a soccer field each weekend is an awful wrench. "Working to establish your authority", especially by doing some of the things that you have worked so hard to free yourself from having to do in the rest of your life, just isn't a natural impulse. It's not surprising that only a few teenagers choose to put themselves in this position, as a referee, in the first place. Nor that so many of those that do referee then undermine themselves by their reluctance to appear to take themselves seriously once there.

Susan, what I didn't say that afternoon is that refereeing is a role, as well as a job. You did the job well. But you chose not to play the role, and then you were very hurt that people didn't accept the decisions you made because of that. But the role is important too. When emotions run high and a close call has to be made, the players and the spectators have to believe in you if they are to accept an unpalatable outcome. You have to help them place that trust in you. Your behavior has to communicate how seriously you are taking that responsibility. You owe that to them, if you want their trust and acceptance. And you do, otherwise you wouldn't have been so hurt when it didn't come.

Knowing all this now, perhaps you will still decide that refereeing is not for you. Then again, perhaps you'll come back with a wider sense of what it's all about, and a lessened sense of personal injury. I really hope you do - you have so much to offer.

Best wishes -

A friend on the line