Three scenarios:
1) Women’s college game. 58th minute Red and White players go in for a header about 30 yards from the White goal. They both fairly challenge for the ball but knock heads. The referee immediately whistles the play dead and proceeds to check on the players to see if there is a need to bring in a trainer for a concussion check. He determines there is no need for a concussion check. The restart is a drop ball.
The Red player loudly and publicly declares that she will knock the ball back to the White keeper (this is an expected behavior but it is outside of the formal rules.) White backs away and resets their shape so there is an open alley to goal for Red. The referee drops the ball and Red takes off like a rocket to goal. She (thankfully) shanks the shot.
What should you do as a referee?
2) High school game between two mediocre teams where they can’t string together three good touches and the quality of play is low, Blue is playing against Bumblebee. The referee is allowing incidental contact to go as in his mind it is trifling. No player is getting pissed off at the odd bump and strong challenge. The coach for the Blue team is having a problem with contact being allowed although all of her players are playing through it. In the 60th minute, a Blue player is attempting to play through to goal. She sends the ball forward and then runs over a Bumblebee player who had firmly, and clearly established a position to play the ball (that went through her legs) and did not move from that position within reaction time of the attacker. The referee had nothing as the defending player had a right to her established space. The Blue coach went apeshit.
The following phrased was used “Referee, you can’t be serious that is not a foul, I was a Division 1 player at (a piss-poor program) and I know that is a foul…”
What do you do? Does this change if the game is a professional game? D-1 college game? D-3 college game? U-17 rec game?
3) A few weeks ago, my initial Saturday schedule was to pick up Amy and proceed to College 1 to run a line for her at 10:30AM. At 1:15 Amy and I were to go to College 2 (10 miles down the road) to pick up Rob (a 22 year college student who is a pretty good referee. He can run like a gazelle and we, as a group, figure we can train judgment and experience into him) who was to be in the middle of a women’s game that started at 11:00. The three of us were then to drive to East Nowhere State (2 hours away) for a 5:00pm women’s game that I had the center. Since I drive the little econobox, I was the crew driver.
This is a typical Saturday.
I receive a call from my assignor at 8:45 in the morning as I am picking up Amy.
“Richard, change of plans, Rob owes me and you beer and you owe him a dope slap; drop Amy off at College 1, you go to College 2 and take the middle, and then get Amy and Rob to ENS…” I agree and the 11:00 game goes swimmingly.
On the drive down to East Nowhere State, I hear Rob’s side of the story. He was at a party on Friday night, playing beer pong, and he hears a young woman boast that she was the best player for College 2. He looked, and saw that this woman was neither the red headed target forward or the African American holding midfielder (flip a coin as to who is better by your preference) so he called bullshit on her and said that College 2’s red headed forward was the best player. She asks how he has this opinion (he reffed College 2 twice already) and he indicates he is either a referee or a stalker, makes her laugh and they start talking. At 2:00AM he texts the assignor saying he needs to get off the College 2 game because he had just fucked the center back.
a) How big of a dope slap is needed?
b) How much beer should I get?
c) How long should Rob be kept off of College 2 games?
My thoughts:
1) This is a tough one. By the strictest reading of the book, Red did nothing wrong, so all the referee has is a goal kick. If this was my game, I would also have a red card in the next ten minutes as White will send a cleat through Red’s knees to make a statement that this was dirty as hell. How do we promote justice and keep everyone’s knees intact?
The referee who was on this game said that his thought process was the following: “Oh Shit, oh shit, oh shit, I really should do something, I really should do something, but what… and my whistle weighs a ton, fuck, that ball went wide, she needs a yellow card for general douchebaggery” and proceeded to caution the player for unsporting behavior.
We had a long discussion about this at the college chapter monthly meeting. One professional referee in the group made a repetitious point “Inadvertent whistle”.
His explanation was that this action is massively outside of the normal expectations of play and it violated any common understanding of fair play. The Red player announced that she would follow the unwritten rule of the ceremonial drop-ball followed by a knock-back to the keeper that happens 99.9% of the time after an injury check stoppage while the ball is still in play. White responded to this announcement as an honest announcement of intention and dispersed to make themselves defensively vulnerable. Red took advantage of this, and proceeded onto goal. Killing the play with an absolute bullshit reason of “accidentally” blowing the whistle and then calling the trainer onto the field to check Red for a head injury in order to remove her from the game temporarily while her coach rips her a new one would have been accepted by the other 21 players and both coaches as fair and just. It is an unwritten rule that we need to enforce, otherwise White will feel greiviously injured and they will retaliate with a straight leg challenge to the knee.
The yellow card is truly a game control caution as the behavior was unsporting as hell, but not technically illegal. It is hard to justify solely as a sanction for unsporting behavior. I don’t think it was a valid yellow card, but it served its purpose to put the onus on Red for being a jackass. The ref got away with one as the coaches accepted it and would not challenge the game on that basis.
Now what happens if a goal is legally scored?
We can’t pull the ball out of the net and deny the goal. At this point, our best hope is Red’s coach realizes that his player was a massive idiot, pull her for an ass chewing, and then instruct his players to allow a ceremonial dribble through for an equalizing White goal. At that point, both teams will feel things are even and no one will have gained an advantage from douchebaggery.
If the Red coach does not do this, the game will officially go to shit and I expect multiple red cards and a fun discplinary hearing and after action review. I can’t force the Red coach to take this action, I can only strongly recommend it with an observation that I want to keep all 22 knees on his team functioning. Almost all college coaches will very quickly understand where I’m coming from on this.
2) I was watching this game as I had the 8:15 game after this 6:00pm game. The coach was chewing the ears of the referee crew for at least forty minutes before this statement. In my mind, this statement is a red card offense and an immediate dismissal of the coach for bringing the game into disrepute and directly challenging the competence of the referees. The first part of the statement in isolation can be part of the back and forth between a coach and a referee as long as it is immediate, relevant and ends there. The second part is what in my mind is ejection worthy. The coach is attempting to pull rank or supposed expertise to intimidate the referee into making favorable to Blue decisions. Goodbye.
The referee in question just told the coach that was enough, but could not or would not enforce it as the coach was a lunatic until the end of the game.
3a) Rob needs a pretty good size dope slap, as his side of the events implies the perception of coercion or favoritism in order to get into her pants. He made a good decision to get off the game after he got off, but the decision making process was lacking.
b) At least a case of something good as my legs were shot by the end of the night. I got 14 miles in, including 3 miles of hard sprints that day.
c) At least the rest of the season, and a maximum of the center back’s eligibility (she is a red shirt senior, so it could be next year). Can’t have the perception of favoritism.
mclaren
Ban high school and college sports so U.S. students can spend more time studying and get out of the basement where they languish at 14th place in their math and science scores compared to the rest of the world.
David Koch
It depends. if it was Elizabeth Lambert i’d update my insurance.
SmallAxe
1. Definitely a yellow card to the red player. Add at least a minute to extra time and seriously admonish her publicly and for at least a minute. Pull her coach over too while you do that. That behavior needs to be stopped in its tracks promptly. Award free kick to white from their side.
rikyrah
I don’t have a clue, but I love reading your non-Obamacare related posts too.
SmallAxe
2. Sounds like the ref did the right thing. Tell the coach that’s enough. If he keeps going toss him. That’s irrespective of the sport being played or the level it’s at.
Mardam
Your site keeps jumping down or up to one of your embedded ads every ten seconds. What’s up with that? I can’t read any of the posts.
Mathguy
Thanks for posting these-I needed something non political to start the day. Scenario number three was interesting. Forgot what it was like to be an occasionally irresponsible 22 year old.
Richard mayhew
@Mathguy: The thing is he thought he was being responsible… Ahh to be 22
cmorenc
As to scenario #1, if the ball the two possibly injured players were contesting when they banged heads had dropped to another white player’s otherwise uncontested feet just at the instant the referee blew the whistle, and the white player at the drop ball had merely presumed the opposing red player at the DB would “do the sporting thing” without the red player giving any acknowledgement that was in fact her intent – then technically, the referee can do nothing.
HOWEVER, since the red player DID clearly indicate she intended to give the ball back to the white GK – her act of taking what clearly amounted to a hard shot on goal constitutes unsporting verbal deception, in a similar class with e.g. a red player positioned behind the back of a white player and barking “LEAVE” as a ball is incoming toward the white player so white will let the ball roll through to her presumed teammate instead of playing it – which is the textbook case for a YC for unsporting verbal deception of an opponent.
And if the red player goes uncarded, well – there will likely be some white players thinking “lovely ankles you got there reddie, gee it would be a shame should something happen to one of them”.
jibeaux
Sports are so boring, I couldn’t even read them. Football could basically be used as a dental sedative on me. It’s a long winter for my people.
Samuel Knight
On # 1 fortunate the she shanked the shot. Don’t think that you can really punish her for violating a politeness norm – BUT you can closely watch her for any borderline play – anything – afterward and card her. Message – you can bend the rules – but remember I’m going to judge you by that metric now.
On #2 – Red Card the coach. And any player or coach or tries to fight you on it. Red card them too. Refs are far too easy on jerks on the sidelines.
My other peave is when players trail the ref. I would love to see refs just turn around and yellow card every single player who is talking to him. And then of course turn to the sideline and red card the coach because he clearly hasn’t taught his players the rules. You could call it the Mourinho rule.
Richard Mayhew
@cmorenc:
3 things
1) Good point on verbal deception, we did not go that route, we went down the rabbit hole of unsporting behavior only.
2) Up here, it is high challenges at the top of the calf that is the favored mode of retaliation
3) Only one ankle at risk, the teams in your area are nice :)
BGinCHI
1. -1
2. 1
3. 0
These are the three best guesses on any math test.
You’re welcome.
Amir Khalid
@mclaren:
A football referee like Richard doesn’t have the power to shut down the multibillion dollar business of university sports in America.
RobertB
This happened in my daughter’s volleyball game last Tuesday. One of her teammates shanks her kill shot into the net, then smacks the ball over to the other team in frustration. That’s bad form, and I hear refs warn the girls not to do that all the time. This time, the opposing coach tells the second ref, “That girl smacked it under the net. Give her a yellow card.” And the ref does! Our coach gave the ref a little grief, but didn’t feel like making enough of an argument to get the following red card*.
* Volleyball cards at the club and HS level are yellow – warning, red – point. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a red card in 4 years of watching my daughter play.
BGinCHI
@Amir Khalid: Um, have you seen him with his Superhero costume on?
Be careful, AK.
Ps. I’m so excited about Klopp I can hardly stand it.
Old Dan and Little Anne
I would think there would be rules for College refs to not bang the players.
scav
Guard’s reporting that Blatter has been suspended – Liveblog here.
Digger O'Dell
@mclaren:
All those countries that are beating us in math and science have sports too, you know. Their kids probably particiapte more than ours do.
I understand the criticism of the NCAA, but the idea that playing sports is what’s hurting test scores (which are taken long before they go to college) is nuts.
ThresherK
I thought Canadian football’s penalty for “objectionable conduct” (15 yards) was the Most Canadian Thing Ever.
Until I heard “Bringing the game into disrepute”. This really needs to be a gridball penalty, simply because I want to hear a mic’ed referee announce it on TV.
Punchy
@Old Dan and Little Anne: Have you seen how hawt some of these ballers are? Why dont you also ask these 22 year old refs (former jocks) not to surf pr0n and limit their drinks to 3 an hour?
From what I remember in college, soccer chicks were second only to swimmers in overall quality of body and pure sluttery.
MattF
Re: 1) Speaking as a complete ignoramus… Isn’t there generally a rule against unsportsman-like conduct? And supposing, for the sake of argument, that there is, why shouldn’t it be enforced?
benw
1. Reward Red’s mendacity by also joining the dark side and ruling the galaxy as father and daughter.
2. Calmly inform the offending coach that he’ll be tossed if he doesn’t immediately do the “funky chicken”.
3. Seriously? Hi-five, Rob! Bros before hos.
… I should not be a ref.
MattF
@scav: Suspended for 90 days. Why not fired?
Just One More Canuck
@ThresherK: What could you possibly do in football (US) that could bring the game into disrepute?
RobertB
@MattF: The word on the street is that FIFA thinks that 90 days will be enough time to see if Sepp gets indicted or not.
Ziggurat
@MattF: The ethics committee can’t fire him. 99 days plus a 45 day extension is the best they can do.
different-church-lady
Accuse the Patriots of cheating.
randy khan
@RobertB: And he’s supposed to leave in February anyway (granted, perhaps not something you should count on), so 90 days would leave only a month or so before he’s supposed to be gone.
Lee
I’ve got an interesting story & question about being a referee in the younger games (< U11).
From other people's accounts, my oldest was a pretty good ref. The one thing she did not tolerate was coaches berating their players excessively. She never had to get past 'Tell' in Ask/Tell/Dismiss and even had a couple of parents thank her after games for reeling in the coach.
Was there an actual rule she was enforcing? Thinking back I think most of the time it revolved around Rec games.
Richard Mayhew
@Lee:
Yep, the “Don’t be a douchebag” rule.
If, in the opinion of the referee, a coach or other bench personal is acting with irresponsible behavior, the referee can sanction that person up to and including sending them off.
Excessive yelling at players in a youth rec game qualifies as irresponsible behavior in my mind.
Richard Mayhew
@Old Dan and Little Anne: There are rules and ethical expectations that we don’t put ourselves in either objectively compromising situations or situations which a reasonable person could conclude could be seen as compromising. And yes, that includes don’t sleep with players.
Rob thought he was doing good as he was getting off the game. Amy had a nice long talk about power dynamics, and perceived power dynamics for the first hour after Rob told his side.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@mclaren:
Jesus.
Extracurriculars are unambiguously good things. The problems occur when the extracurriculars take precedence over academics, such as with high school football. Bannage isn’t the answer, perspective is the answer.
trollhattan
@Mardam:
Same here. Viewport gets dragged to the ad between post and comments and can’t be moved without snapping back. Had to switch from FF to Chrome to read further.
Don’t know if it was just that particular ad or a larger problem.
smintheus
@Richard Mayhew: A college student shouldn’t be reffing college games at all. Too many possibilities for conflicts of interest.
call_me_ishmael
1. I’ve had that happen to me twice, once as a player and once as a ref. As a player, I was striker and our center-half and second forward took the kick and took off to the net untouched and hit the post. No call, but a lot of yelling, and I spent the rest of the game dodging knee-high tackles. We lost by three, largely due to our shame. As a ref, I just blew it immediately and red carded the guy. It was just a local league game, and he was a dick. My rationale was that the ref is god, and I can invent fouls like “lying to the ref” if I want. I was wrong, but buddy was such a dick that nobody cared. I like the “inadvertent whistle” dodge.
2. Coach is a dick and needs to be spoken to harshly. His player is also terrible. Anyone who nutmegs a defender without a plan to run around them deserves to receive a little contact. The whole idea of that play is to freeze the defender so you can step by them. I’d card the attacking player for being so stupid to run into the defender there.
3. a) Large slap. Also, no more refereeing women’s games that year, integrity of the job and all that.
b) beers every ten minutes until someone passes put and then beers every 20 minuted thereafter.
c) I’d wait until every player from that team graduates before putting him out there again. Tongues will wag.
Kylroy
@Grumpy Code Monkey: ,,,did you seriously just ask mclaren to have some *perspective*?
What’s that line about teaching a pig to sing?
ThresherK (GPad)
@Just One More Canuck: In the US, it’s a bit of a joke answer.
However, I would like for the Saskatchewan Roughriders (fan since the 70s) to give up the “watermelon” helmet.
FlyingToaster
@mclaren:
Oh, for pete’s sake…
I had friends (not just fellow inmates) at my high school in the ’70s who would have dropped out except for sports. Who would not have gone onto college but for their chosen sport. Who are NOT professional athletes, but are in white-collar jobs now (teachers, account executives, middle management), because sport kept them engaged enough to do the academic work.
Same goes for the other “non-tested” subjects, art and music.
And comparing a country’s students who do not track (the US), against, say, Germany, where only the gymnasium kids are being compared, is ridiculous. I have dealt with the testing crowd professionally (several “test-the-tester” projects back in the ’90s), and you’re using crap stats and crap logic and perverse values. If you want to keep kids engaged, you offer every damn thing you can think of so that you keep the kid who excels at throwing a ball, the kid who excels at welding, the kid who excels at drawing cartoons, and the kid who improvises on cello in their damn academic subjects too.
Interestingly enough, our local public school’s new superintendent is espousing the philosophy of my daughter’s private school; re-starting the elementary art and music and language programs, and having club sports after school, because the results of “paring everything back to academics” was a further drop in test scores.
NonyNony
@FlyingToaster:
Yes. When claims are made comparing our students to international students you have to look very closely to see if this is controlled for and it almost NEVER is. Education “reformers” get away with a lot of bullshit by making these kinds of comparisons because Americans do not understand how vastly different most of the educational systems in the rest of the world are because of how they track their students.
AS EVERYONE WHO KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS WAS TELLING THESE DUMBASSES DECADES AGO WHEN THEY WERE MAKING THESE BONEHEADED DECISIONS!!!!!
Ahem – yes. Education researchers already knew this. But of course administrators and politicians don’t want to hear it. They want simple solutions that sound like good common sense. (Or they want excuses to dismantle the public school system entirely and replace it with something more lucratively private sector.)
Lige
Re: #1 in American football my team just got burned by a guy pretending to call fair catch on one side of the field while the ball was actually headed to another receiver on the other side of the field and that reciever returned it for a touchdown while my team was chasing the wrong guy. Was I angry yes – was it wrong no. I understand norm violating causes issues but the red headed player didn’t do anything wrong if anything the players on the other side should have followed the famous dictum “Trust but verify” and been prepared for some sort of skulduggery.
Just One More Canuck
@ThresherK (GPad): My cousin in Regina has season tickets for the Riders and posts pictures of herself with the watermelon helmet on her FB feed.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
As long as we are making sexist comments about female athletes, don’t leave out volleyballers and those daisy dukes they wear.
As far as sluttiness, I have no reference to judge that and refuse to jump in. Even following the rule of thumb of one more sex partner, I still have no point of reference.
Big R
1. I like the inadvertent whistle and check for head injury trick. Along the way you can pull the player aside and say, “That might have been the dumbest thing I’ve seen in RELEVANT_TIME_PERIOD, maybe you should ask your coach to let you sit the rest of this one?” And when she says no way, then you call the coach in and tell him that Red is brain-damaged and needs to sit.
2. Red card to coach. My attitude as a player/captain/coach is that I can point out facts that I think should change the ref’s call (like when I was playing keeper, and the attacker shoved me off the play in the box and then scored), but I do not question the ref’s judgment. The rules are clear. When they arrive at the stadium and until they leave, the ref is god.
3. Rob is a dumbass, but I’m not sure he’s incurably so. I get the concerns about power dynamics and perceived power dynamics. I’d be curious to know whether he ever implied that he was reffing the game for the center back the next day. I don’t know that that changes the perceived power dynamics, or whether “I’m a ref at the level you play” is sufficient to vitiate consent. But I’d be curious. I’d also really want to hear what the center back has to say, but now I’m less “referee” and more “investigating prosecutor.” As a remedy: medium dope slap, but only after the game (because maybe the center back really is too hot to pass up, which would downgrade it to a small dope slap). Lots of beer. Ineligibility until the center back goes, “Rob who?”
Dice
@trollhattan: I’ve had it happen on a couple other pages in the last couple days, so it doesn’t seem to be just here. My semi-educated guess would be a Flash issue at the server end … annoying as hell, whatever the source.
Bitter Scribe
@Lige: The Seahawks did that to the Bears in the second game of the season, except I don’t think they gave a fair catch signal. As far as I know it was a perfectly legit play. It embarrassed the hell out of the Bears, where special teams is prominent on a long list of things that need fixing.
I don’t know nearly enough about soccer to venture a judgment on Richard’s conundrums. All I’ll say is I don’t know how soccer refs don’t fall down dead at the end of every match, the way they have to run.
Frank
Unsporting conduct is not “technically illegal”. It IS illegal. Blow the whistle immediately when it becomes apparent what the red player is doing; caution for unsporting conduct; restart with an indirect free kick for the opposing team.
It is the same way we would treat a situation where red is behind white; a high ball is coming down in front of white; and red shouts “I got it” so that white backs off without knowing it is red behind him, and red takes the ball. It’s “unsporting as hell”, AND it is illegal. Call it.