Leave the refs alone!

The Situation: Last weekend I witnessed another group of parents/spectators lash out at a referee during a youth soccer game. I have seen this sort of behavior way too many times in past years. Thus, it will be my first Blog topic to see if we can't improve this negative side product of youth soccer or youth sports in general.

From my point of view, as a coach, the referee in that game was probably a 7 on a 10 point scale. His decisions certainly had no impact on who won the game.  He did a decent job of making calls most of the time. However, after the group of parents harrassed the ref about his calls, the players of the same team reacted to questionable calls, too.

At the time, it was the middle of the 2nd half, the score was 0-0. What was the final? You guessed right...the team whose parents complained loudly ended up losing 0-1 and rightfully so. Once the players focused on the referee's calls, their performance suffered. They lost sight of their own need to play better. They followed their parents's lead by whining and crying about something that during the entire history of sports has never changed: A referee reversing a call he has just made.

The question remains: Why do people (parents, players, coaches, fans) think they have the right to lash out at the refreee at youth games all the time? What's the point? Wrong decisions are always part of any game. Players mistrap balls, referees will miss a throw-in here and there. It happens. Or is it our sense of justice that makes us risk a public spectacle. Whatever the reason, the venom and anger displayed when a ref makes a bad call is just too much at times and sets a bad example for everyone involved. 9 out of 10 times the complainers end up losing the game; and sometimes more than just the game.

So, why do it anyway? Is it a reflex, an innate response so uncontrollable to humans that we are willing to risk so much for nothing in return? What it says to me is that there is a certain level of disrespect for the game and the players involved. The funny thing is that in about half the situations the referee actually makes the right call.

My SOCCER adWEISS is simple:

For Players: Don't complain, move on right away. Get ready for the next play. Expect mistakes to be part of any refereed game and accept the fact that you may be wronged from time to time. If you cannot get ready for the next play, your team will lose out. You will not be ready to defend or focus on what you need to do next. Also, your play generally deteriates because you are still thinking about a past call. On the contrary, make poor refereeing the motivator to do better as a player and as a team. Turn something negative into a positive whenever you can. It's the same thing in life.

For Parents: Try not to get your heart rate up unnecessarily. Accept the fact there will be errors made on the part of the referee (or at least the way you see it). Those "wrong decisions" are a true chance for your son or daughter to experience "adversity" in their sport, one of life's great lessons. Why ruin that opportunity for your kid? Isn't that the reason you want your kid to play sports in the first place?

On the other hand, if you want to become an informed critic of the Laws of the Game, try to become a referee yourself. You will be much more forgiving of refereeing mistakes in the future when you discovered that it is always the referee's discretion to make a callor not. That discretion is the true determiner of the quality of his calls.

For Coaches: It's a fact that you will win games because you did not confront a referee about his decisions. Your players will follow your lead and be much more focused on what they CAN control: Their performance! Trust me, it works every time.