The Sports Forum - Am I the only one?? Refs????

Am I the only parent that gets frustrated when my boys play sports (hockey, soccer, lacrosse) and the refs are so out of shape they cant keep up with the kids and miss calls???

I feel like I pay good money to have my kids play at a competitive level, yet the refs are sometime so far out of the play that they continually miss calls.

In addition, I feel as if they dont take any responsibility for the development of these kids.

Thanks for your comments, I just needed to vent..

Pete

My Daughter plays club soccer.
While she is not the best, she is good
It is very frustrating to watch the missed and bad calls all the time
I hear you 100%

how much do you think a ref gets paid for a kids sport game?

Pathfinder has the right path, so to speak...

I used to ref for a competitive Dek hockey league, and I volunteered. No pay, but it didn't matter because I love the game and I did it because they needed help. I caught some grief, but I always got a handshake and a thank you from the guys who knew I could be home on my couch if I really wanted. I did the best I could and remained neutral for the integrity of the game.

Unless your kid is playing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, try to keep it all in perspective. I tell my son that as long as he's having fun playing with his buds, that's all that really matters.

i suggest you step up pete and get a whistle since you are superior to the refs you are seeing

Am I the only parent that gets frustrated when my boys play sports (hockey, soccer, lacrosse) and the refs are so out of shape they cant keep up with the kids and miss calls???

I feel like I pay good money to have my kids play at a competitive level, yet the refs are sometime so far out of the play that they continually miss calls.

In addition, I feel as if they dont take any responsibility for the development of these kids.

Thanks for your comments, I just needed to vent..

Pete


:trout:

Refs in our Softball League make a whopping $40 per game. They are there about an hour prior and a half hour after, about 4 hours of "their" time not including driving. They do it because they enjoy it and are basically volunteering......Do you have the time to do it?? If so you should step up. I can assure you Refs in our League put up with tons of BS as do the coaches who make Notta

how much do you think a ref gets paid for a kids sport game?

They are paid for soccer $35, Hockey and Lacrosse is $65 per ref, a game.

Thanks for the feed back. I guess my perspective is off. You guys are right, I don't ref. But I do coach both of my boys hockey teams, which all in all is about 25 to 30 hours a week, for which I don't get paid. I put an huge amount of time in with these boys in an attempt to make them better men and hockey players. All I ask is that the refs do the same.

I agree Petepup,it sucks to watch blown calls but keep it in perspective. Most Refs around our area do not have kids involved in the sport. Most are retired or semi retired people who are kind of "giving back"....I always just slipped the Refs a $20 and the blown calls always happened to the other team for some reason

I'm with you Pete. Umpires in my son's little league are often horrendous. Either they try to apply rules from other leagues or they don't know the rules at all. We try to have our own in-house umpires to try and keep consistent with calls, but it seems like we always get saddled with an umpire who just doesn't care to be informed before calling a game.

Worst one was an ump from another league who called a foul ball a home run. First it landed foul and then bounced over the fence. He called it a home run and when I questioned the call, he proceeded to say that he couldn't get down the line to actually see where the ball landed. ;?

1. You get what you pay for.....
2. Just not enough quality officials for many reasons, pay, time, dealing with out of control fans, coaches, violence, etc...
3. At all levels including college..just ask a d2 or community college coach, heck how about some bad MLB calls?
4. Put up or shut up..strap it on and try to improve the officiating..it's what I did for 15 years...work till 5pm get to game site by six...work a high school baseball game(with no time limit) get 50$, home by eleven..start over next day

I don't get it. In the military the saying is "you don't do it for the money." Is it too much to ask these refs to not do a half-assed job? So let me get this straight. Are some of you saying if they were paid more, had better security, had a health and dental plan and a 401K they would make better calls? Volunteer or payed, just have a little integrity or go do something else. I just don't get it sometimes.

Keith.

I don't get it. In the military the saying is "you don't do it for the money." Is it too much to ask ese refs to not do a half-assed job? So let me get this straight. Are some of you saying if they were paid more, had better security, had a health and dental plan and a 401K they would make better calls? Volunteer or payed, just have a little integrity or go do something else. I just don't get it sometimes.

Keith.

have you ever ref'd before at any level? it's not an easy job. I've seen parents at coach pitch championships blow easy calls at first base. I've coached AAU basketball for 8 years deep into regional and national tournaments and it took me about 3-4 years to finally come to terms with the fact that we would never had perfect referees and to let it bother me was useless. half the time the kids forgot by the next day and life went on. It only gets marginally better in high school sports and marginally better in div 2 & 3 college.

The premise of the opening post was the refs are too out of shape to even have an opportunity to make a good or bad call. Again, all it takes is caring about the product you put out there. In this case the product is a well called game. If you can't do that, stay home!

Keith.

The premise of the opening post was the refs are too out of shape to even have an opportunity to make a good or bad call. Again, all it takes is caring about the product you put out there. In this case the product is a well called game. If you can't do that, stay home!

Keith.

your right and the op is correct that the ref's should at least be in decent enuf shape to keep up

Pete ask yourself this... if the problem truly is the poor job by the referee's, then your son's and your team gets the benefit of 50% of the bad calls. If you feel it always goes against you, then you have a different problem which you will have to address within yourself. Ive spent my time as a ref/ump many times and everyone makes bad calls but eventually it all comes full circle. As a coach, I always tried to use a bad call against us as an opportunity to teach kids sportsmanship and learn a life lesson that everything can't go your way... learn to deal with adversity. Good luck as a coach and as a parent! Sounds like you invest much of your time with your kids and others too. Keep up the good work!

Keith..the point is you are not going to get an experienced official to go do a little league kids game for 20 bucks or free, unless his kid is in the league...period.....it's hard to get experienced officials to do high school and low level college games..what you are seeing is officials doing the best they can..talk to your league assignor and ask where he finds his officials request officials with professional experience and see what happens

I don't get it. In the military the saying is "you don't do it for the money." Is it too much to ask these refs to not do a half-assed job? So let me get this straight. Are some of you saying if they were paid more, had better security, had a health and dental plan and a 401K they would make better calls? Volunteer or payed, just have a little integrity or go do something else. I just don't get it sometimes.

Keith.


+1

I know its a hard job and they are volunteers but were not talking close calls. We are talking multiple misunderstandings of the game no matter differences of rules in divisions/leagues, whatever.

And it not all of them. Just a select few but they have major impacts on the kids and parents who do pay and dedicate a lot of time for their kids to play.
I coach my son's u12 soccer team and we had a bad injury earlier this year and I think had the ref understood and called fouls this kid wouldnt have gotten hurt.

Most refs do a great job but I agree with Keith. Find a different hobby if you dont know the game well enough. There is a lot at stake, more than a couple of missed calls.

Hockey I could see where you need to be in shape.

Baseball we mostly have semi retired or retired men, HS kids or parents calling the games.

We play 6 innings or 2 hours and the pay is $20 a game.

Our softball leagues is an hour time limit and pays $28 a game cash, thats pretty decent money for an hours work. If you call the game by yourslef you get 1 1/2 times pay $42 an hour.

try officiating wrestling for the last 15 years and you will see how many parents have no idea aout the rules and how many times it is the officials fault that little johnny lost 19-3...............its almost funny but not really !;?

I'm 51 and still play recreation level adult hockey. I've never understood why people have such a hard time understanding that human officiating, and all that comes with it, is simply part of the game. They make mistakes, just like you and me. They make mistakes at all levels, including MLB, NHL, NFL, etc. It is part of the game. I certainly have an issue if a ref is purposefully trying to disadvantage a team, but that is very rare in my experience. When guys on my team get worked up over a call, I just laugh at them. When my kids get worked up over calls in their games, I explain that it is part of the game that they will always have to live with. You know, life aint fair.... At the end of any game, it is a statistically rare event that a single call really makes the difference. It may make a difference at that moment, but there are usually lots of opportunities for teams during the game to perform and make the calls irrelevant. I laugh when I hear stuff like "the ref blew the game when he disallowed that goal", when 5 minutes earlier a kid missed a wide open net. Humans are imperfect, always will be.....

I'm 51 and still play recreation level adult hockey. I've never understood why people have such a hard time understanding that human officiating, and all that comes with it, is simply part of the game. They make mistakes, just like you and me. They make mistakes at all levels, including MLB, NHL, NFL, etc. It is part of the game. I certainly have an issue if a ref is purposefully trying to disadvantage a team, but that is very rare in my experience. When guys on my team get worked up over a call, I just laugh at them. When my kids get worked up over calls in their games, I explain that it is part of the game that they will always have to live with. You know, life aint fair.... At the end of any game, it is a statistically rare event that a single call really makes the difference. It may make a difference at that moment, but there are usually lots of opportunities for teams during the game to perform and make the calls irrelevant. I laugh when I hear stuff like "the ref blew the game when he disallowed that goal", when 5 minutes earlier a kid missed a wide open net. Humans are imperfect, always will be.....


My concern isnt the score as much as it is bad fouls that can cause injury.
My kid is fast. Fastest in his school, fastest on his baseball team, fastest on his Pop Warner team and fastest on his soccer team. Like a 4.19 second 40 yd fast.
So what happens to him is the defense gets the ball pushed past them so they take out his feet from behind. Or they just run directly into him to stop him. Sometimes the ref even calls a foul on him when the kid bounces off and hits the ground...The old "big guy foul".
This past weekend 1st half he got mugged hard 2 times and then a kid just flat ran into him from the side with both forearms up and a knee into his thigh. He went down and was crying out loud holding his thigh. Guess wha...No foul...As he is laying there the ref was standing over us and i asked him why no prior fouls or a foul now..He said I saw no fouls.....:roll
2nd half he goes back in...Same kid, same foul. Both forearms and knee up into him this time the kid lands on top of him. My kid lands on his own arm and I thought he may have broke it. The ref called a foul this time..The other coach apologized.
There are consequences for bad refs. Shame for the kids.

Subject: Mom gets jail for stalking baseball official


Tis the season…….



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mom gets jail for stalking baseball official

Calling her actions "despicable," a Nassau (http://www.newsday.com/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY) County judge Tuesday sentenced an East Meadow (http://www.newsday.com/topics/East_Meadow%2C_NY) mother who threatened a Little League official, his wife and his son after one of her own sons failed to make a travel team roster to 60 days in jail and five years probation.
Janet Chiauzzi, 45, was arrested last June after she made false claims against the official, saying he had abused his children. She had previously pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts and two felonies - second-degree stalking and first-degree filing of a false instrument. Three other charges, one a felony, were dismissed.
Authorities said Chiauzzi, who has sons ages 15 and 12, sent threatening letters to the official's wife and then 10-year-old son after her own son was not selected for the summer travel team in the East Meadow (http://www.newsday.com/topics/East_Meadow%2C_NY) Baseball/Softball Association.
Before announcing the sentence, Nassau (http://www.newsday.com/topics/Nassau_County%2C_NY) County Court Judge Jerald Carter read excerpts from those letters, one of which noted that "if something terrible happens" to the official's family the 10-year-old boy could blame his father."That's what you wrote to a 10-year-old boy?" Carter said, adding: "That's despicable."
The official's wife told the court her son, now 11 years old, "was targeted and tormented by an adult bully."
Her lawyer, Peter Bongiorno of Mineola (http://www.newsday.com/topics/Mineola%2C_NY), said his client has "admitted responsibility. She is remorseful."
In addition to sentencing Chiauzzi to 60 days in county jail, Carter placed her on five years probation for the misdemeanor counts and three years probation, to run concurrently, for the two felony counts.
Chiauzzi also was ordered to make restitution for some medical expenses related to the case and Carter issued a restraining order barring her from contact with the official and his family



Don't get too crazy :o These are NOT professional refs, coachs, mgrs etc.

Before complaining, you should try to get it fixed or fix it yourself.

Trust me, I've been there too. :banghead:

My concern isnt the score as much as it is bad fouls that can cause injury.
My kid is fast. Fastest in his school, fastest on his baseball team, fastest on his Pop Warner team and fastest on his soccer team. Like a 4.19 second 40 yd fast.
So what happens to him is the defense gets the ball pushed past them so they take out his feet from behind. Or they just run directly into him to stop him. Sometimes the ref even calls a foul on him when the kid bounces off and hits the ground...The old "big guy foul".
This past weekend 1st half he got mugged hard 2 times and then a kid just flat ran into him from the side with both forearms up and a knee into his thigh. He went down and was crying out loud holding his thigh. Guess wha...No foul...As he is laying there the ref was standing over us and i asked him why no prior fouls or a foul now..He said I saw no fouls.....:roll
2nd half he goes back in...Same kid, same foul. Both forearms and knee up into him this time the kid lands on top of him. My kid lands on his own arm and I thought he may have broke it. The ref called a foul this time..The other coach apologized.
There are consequences for bad refs. Shame for the kids.

I completely agree with your statement and concerns, but still come back to the fact that it in the big picture, it is all part of the game that is not going to change. If your kid is really good, the other teams will go after him and sometimes the refs will let it go. One of those life lessons that comes from playing sports (a good lesson in my mind). I saw a really strong player in a rec league take a roughing penalty while he was carrying the puck and had both hands on his stick because the ref saw him literally run over two defensemen on his way to the net. That's not in the rules anywhere that I know, but the guy called it. My wife pointed out the same things to me with our son playing hockey. I told her that hockey is a physical game, and he's going to get hurt at time. Hopefully not cheap shots that can be somewhat controlled by good refereeing, but you never know. I've got a scar from a split lip (from the nose straight through) that came from a high stick that was not called (back in the day before helmets and face guards). Maybe the ref saw it, maybe he missed it. My mom saw it, she was pissed. That was 40 years ago. The refs I know mostly try to do a good job all the time. Some are better than others. We had one guy in a rec game call his son on the phone to get advice on a ruling! Made me laugh, made some of my teammates crazy! When I get to the point that I can't let it slide, I'm done.

starmonk--what sport are you talking about and how old is your son?

Thank you everyone for responding. I have really appreciated reading all of the comments and I agree with most everyone about the "Bad Calls". They do go both ways, but it is truly those refs that are so far behind the play that they cant even make the easy calls because they are not even close to being in position.

Example - in my sons lacrosse game this past weekend. The ref (6' and approx 260) was approx 50 yards behind the play and the player up field steps out of bounds. He was so far removed he could not even see where the players foot was. Bad call, yes but he never even had a chance to see it because hes not in position.

If your going to ref games know your limits. If you cant keep up to the play ref a slower game. You should take pride in your work and in the development of these young athletes and if you cant physically do it you should not.

Thanks again to everyone that responded, it has been a great discussion. You will not see me in the new stalking any ref, (just as a side note).

I believe that kids would get far more out of these sports if we just gave the kids some equipment and sent them down to the field to pick teams and play games without parents or refs to gum up the works.

starmonk--what sport are you talking about and how old is your son?

My son is 12. In the case above he is on a rec league U12 soccer.

I believe that kids would get far more out of these sports if we just gave the kids some equipment and sent them down to the field to pick teams and play games without parents or refs to gum up the works.

That would be called Basketball

I coached middle and high school football for 27 years. Last year I got out of coaching and into reffing. It was a blast. I can't wait for football season to start.

gg redfish--as you can see we need new good officials desperately..

as for starmonks kid getting mugged in a soccer game..if the mugging is away from the ball there is a good chance the one soccer official will miss the malicious contact..that is where the coach or league administrator should step in..before there is violence off the field..check out this video --officials don't have eyes behind their heads www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2pWGJ9lLg

I have to shamefully :( admit that I got a little nuts on Saturday and started jawing with the umpire over a call at home plate that was clearly blown. Got a verbal warning and was told that if I question another call during the game I'd be thrown out.

gg redfish--as you can see we need new good officials desperately..

as for starmonks kid getting mugged in a soccer game..if the mugging is away from the ball there is a good chance the one soccer official will miss the malicious contact..that is where the coach or league administrator should step in..before there is violence off the field..check out this video --officials don't have eyes behind their heads www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2pWGJ9lLg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2pWGJ9lLg)

Well,,,he actually had posession of the ball for the 2 big muggins...

With that we had a 3 vs 3 soccer tournament yesterday. 32 teams in our division. 3 different refs and all 3 called excellent games. It is a very hyped tournament and the passions were high. Lots of physical play especially late in the elimination rounds...The refs did an incredible job. I even got a thanks and commendation from a ref that I didnt call out some physical play that he saw and just played an advantage rule on. He later called the rough play on the kid. Sometimes it works the other way.
Congrats to my team The Martians for taking the 3 v 3 U12 championship. 2 five min overtimes and we won on a 3 man p.k. shootout. We started at 8am and played 8 - 20 min games and finished at 4:30 PM.
I know the kids are feeling it today.

I have to shamefully :( admit that I got a little nuts on Saturday and started jawing with the umpire over a call at home plate that was clearly blown. Got a verbal warning and was told that if I question another call during the game I'd be thrown out.

Feel no shame. If the game and kids didnt mean anything to you to begin with then shame. Its part of the game and everyone realizes it after its all over.:thumbsup:

For over 20 years I coached HS football..... If it weren't for officials you'd have mayhem! At the HS level and below most if not all officiate for the love of the game. I've seen my share of good and bad refs but as long as they keep the flow of the game going and are fair to both squads you can overlook the once in awhile bad calls. But most of all their efforts to keep the game safe is paramount! It's the parents and fans in the stands that need to contain their emotions and realize they are watching a sporting event being played and officiated by humans being human! If everyone was perfect we'd never have competition, what a boring world we'd live in! And remember most of all ...sportsmanship should always be exercised not only on the playing field but in the stands as well!