I have previously posted on my blog about parents and youth sport. You can read those posts via these links;
the-over-involved-parent.html when-a-parent-is-the-coach.html However, today I wanted to follow up yesterday's post about getting the best refs for the Women's World Cup and write about the issue of of refs in youth sport and the abuse they face. Picture the scene, a bright sunny summer day, a nice grass pitch with two teams playing a soccer game, sidelines packed with parents cheering on their kids, coaches yelling out instructions to players, the competitive intensity building. One player lunges forward to gain possession of the ball, sending an opponent tumbling to the turf. The referee, isn't sure whether to call a foul, so the play is allowed to go on. The fallen player’s coach thrust his arms skyward, his face contorted with anger and incredulity. His yells at the ref, questioning if he actually knows the rules. This incites the spectators who add their opinions of the non-decision and questioning the referees competency. The usual range of insults arise, ref is playing favorites, needing glasses, is somehow lacking the required knowledge of the rules to be a ref. Of course, players begin feeding off the mounting outrage and start hurling their own criticisms. Now take that scenario and imagine the game being played by kids in the U10 category and refereed by someone 14. In what other sphere can we imagine it acceptable for adults to scream at and insult kids? This situation plays out every weekend across the country. Youth sports officials and administrators contend that ever-escalating verbal abuse is largely to blame for a dwindling referee pool that looks less appealing to young people every year. The fallout is crippling officiating bodies mired in a deeply cutthroat sports culture, one that often holds amateur referees to a professional standard. No, my experience with the situation is limited in sports other than soccer, but when it comes to soccer, player participation numbers continue to rise every year while referee coordinators grapple with stagnation or decline, leaving youth leagues in a constant scramble to fill empty officiating slots. Kids can start earning money as a soccer official at age 13. The money earned for refereeing while not huge is certainly great spending money for a teenager. Yet fewer and fewer teens are signing up. Time constraints are among several reasons for that, but one culprit stands above the rest. The abuse based by youth refs and mostly from adults whether parents or coaches, simply make it seem not worth the hassle. Just like in the youth ranks, the crisis carries into more competition levels and with older kids. and simply boils down to nasty behavior by coaches and parents. Even experienced referees are hanging up their whistles with increasing frequency just as younger referees are growing more and more fed up with verbal abuse that continues to rise. The supply of experienced officials dwindles pretty much at the same rate. Female referees, meanwhile, encounter sexism nearly every time they step onto the field. Now not only are they criticized for on field decisions but the added specter of the fact that somehow being a female , this makes them even less competent to officiate a game. I think club and regional administrators, who in fact are the employers of the referees are equally at fault for the treatment faced by officials. While some club are vigilant about maintaining player and coaching decorum with respect to club administrative rules, many neglect holding their coaches accountable for poor behavior towards officials. And when it comes to parents, no one is really holding them accountable. Some clubs have code of conduct rules for parents but in all my years, rarely have I seen a club really enforce them. The attitudes of players and parents are often a reflection of their coach’s demeanor, so why not just crack down on the coaches displaying bad behavior? One reason is that the reality remains that for youth sports, coaches are volunteering of their time, so clubs worry that if they are too demanding, no one will be willing to volunteer. So what kind of example are coaches who berate officials giving to their young impressionable players? Other culprits are numerous. An explosion of travel leagues coincides with overzealous parents who want to see their kids strive for university scholarships or selection to provincial / national teams. Professional players on television, meanwhile, show kids that feigning injury and berating referees are normal behaviors. I also think that soccer is often hit worse than other sports by parents having a go are refs for the simple reason that even today, with the growth of soccer, too many parents still remain fairly ignorant about many of the rules of the game. So is there any solution ? Cats and dogs. Oil and water. Parents and youth sports officials. Some things just don't mix.Parents and officials never seem to be on the same page. There always seems to be some tension between them. It often seems to parents that the person officiating must be seeing a different game than they are. Every call seems to go against their child's team. Go to just about any youth sports contest and you are bound to hear parents make comments about the official like the following: "Hey, ref, you must be blind!" "Hey, ref. You want to borrow my glasses?" "Ref, are you going out drinking with the other coach after this game?" And when their child's team has lost the game, you will often hear this comment: "It is the ref''s fault we lost the game. If he hadn't made that call, we would have won the game." A cynic would say that refs and parents are the necessary evils of youth sports. Refs are necessary to make sure that one side goes away from the contest feeling their team was cheated, and parents are necessary to provide the players and transport them to and from the game. However, let's keep certain things in perspective. For the majority of youth sports, refs are kids themselves, teenagers usually a few years older than the participants. No matter the sport, there will always be older people on the field to see that the game is played fairly and by the rules. The consistency of training for youth sports refs is sometimes lacking and can be very different from club to club or organization to organization. While the general rule is the higher the level of competitive play, the more likely the officials are trained and paid and a member of an official's organization, the reality is that sometimes given availability, it isn't about having the best trained refs but those willing and available. I mean, can anyone really imagine someone who gets involved in being a referee approaching the game with the intention of being biased or bad? Refs are human, humans make mistakes, that's part of life. In youth sports, these humans with the responsibility of being in control of applying the rules of the game are as I said, still kids and yet some parents who have probably never put themselves out there themselves feel it is ok to criticize. Refereeing in youth sport is an activity for kids, just like participating as an athlete. Using teenagers as refs has advantages to ensure that youth sports can still provide a competitive and rewarding experience to kids and still make it interesting for others to get involved in being refs. Using youth refs has quite a few advantages;
Too often, the parent on the sideline believes that if they attack the character of the referee, the referee will start to call the game for the people who are abusing him. In all of my contact with officials, whether at speaking engagements or in watching them officiate, I have yet to meet a ref who has changed a call because he was emotionally abused by a parent or coach.Indeed, quite the opposite is true: the natural tendency of a ref is to make the call for the less abusive team when the call could go either way. If the abusive parent is trying to influence the ref to make calls for their team they have chosen the wrong way of doing it. The only situation, in my experience, where the abusive strategy works is when the official (oftentimes a young one) becomes intimidated. An intimidated ref is even less likely to call a good game because he or she is afraid of making a mistake. An intimidated ref is likely to not make good calls and the bad taste the experience leaves is very likely to drive him or her from the game, if not the next game, then the one after that, or at the end of the season. I think youth sport has many great things to offer society and kids. When we hear cases of referees being abused ( or coaches but that isn't the topic today), it starts from the fundamental basis that we have lost sight of objectives of youth sport. Furthermore, philosophically, it comes down to simple respect. As adults, parents and coaches need to be good examples of treating others with respect. It really is that simple. The coach sets the tone. When the coach understands the principle of mutual respect, he or she is more likely to be in control of his players and the parents. The parents will take the cues from the coach. If the coach is abusive (and, unfortunately, some are), the parents are likely to follow suit and be abusive. If the coach does not tolerate this behavior, the parents will be better behaved. If the coach goes out of the way to tell the official that he or she appreciates what the official is doing, then the contest will start off on a positive note. The coach should also let the official know before the game starts that the parents will control themselves and not be abusive. That way the official will know that the coach is in control of the sidelines and that he or she wants a positive environment for the young players, as well as for the official. When mutual respect is established, the official will be better able to give his or her best in calling a good and fair contest. If parents are generally supportive of the official and he or she then hears someone question a call from the sidelines, he or she is more likely to pay attention to this type of problem on the field. The parents have gained credibility with the official because they have not complained about every call. Consequently, the official will think more about the last call to determine if it was in error. Now, that right there might be some great wishful thinking. Just telling coaches and parents they must treat refs with respect and expect it to happen won't work. This is something that has always been part of youth sport. I think it really comes down to administrators finding ways to deal with the issue, at least with respect to the behavior of the coaches. Yes, we might lose some coaches, but fact is we are already losing kids working as refs... so which is worse? answer to that for another day.
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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