OT: Youth ref/ump shortage
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
in football maybe, where they carry 85-105 players and a decent former high school starter can walk on and sit the bench if he wants to put in the time, effort and take the physical punishment. Not in other sports.
If you need any more refs, just let me know. Happy to take one for the team and come in to NZ for the weekend 😂
If a kid from, like, Laurel Highlands makes all-section and calls the Point Park coach and says he wants to play there, the coach isn't saying no.
My daughter soccer league pays $150 a game and they still struggle at time finding officials.
regarding officiating a youth game, baseball would probably be the toughest, or hockey. those games are 2+ every time, calling balls/strikes etc. football wouldnt be fun either.. Soccer would probably be the easiest. This is not a knock on soccer, not going there, just talking about time duration and making calls for a youth game..
im surprised it's a challenge. Baseball would be tough but i think the most fun (until parents get on your ass of course).
im surprised it's a challenge. Baseball would be tough but i think the most fun (until parents get on your ass of course).
pittdan77
Athletic Director
The toughest part of baseball is calling balls and strikes because everyone is pretty sure their angle from the lawn chair is better. I used to tell coaches to send the kids up swinging because I was calling the corners. Walks are boring. As long as you were consistent they let you alone. That's the reputation you want.
That said, you can still have a bad game that there isn't any good explanation for or something really goofy happens and you have a coach go bonkers. Besides one terribly awful game I called one night for my dad's friend (and I still hear about it annually), I had a kid tag up from second on a fly ball and score in a pony league game. I did everything right to line up the bag with the outfielder. Was never more certain that the kid didn't leave the base til the ball was caught. The coach just couldn't fathom that the kid was that fast and absolutely tore into me. The worst part is that after tossing him, I had to go to him to get paid after the game. The home plate ump backed me up but this guy was just adamant that there just wasn't any way the kid did that without leaving early. He never liked me after that but he also never acted disrespectfully. I only tossed him that night because he wouldn't leave the field.
Sign me up for that. I think it would be fun to run around for 1.5 hours and make $150
I agree soccer is the easiest to officiate. That said, officiating is abysmal. They call NOTHING. Why have refs?
150 bucks for a soccer game? Im in. Hell, for 150 bucks i'll even learn what the hell offsides in soccer actually is..
I had a friend from Switzerland. He was bewildered by American football. His most frequent exclamation was what he considered the absurdity of the officials throwing a yellow flag seemingly randomly to signify a penalty. I countered about the bewilderment of the officials using different colored cards in “his” football, and my favorite, the seemingly random addition of extra time. All of which he found perfectly logical.
If someone put up a billboard advertising $150 to ref soccer games, I think they'd get literally thousands of applicants. That would be as good as it gets for a side hustle.
i tried to get my 13 year old daughter to take the class and do rec games for my area. 20 bucks a game, do a few in morning and call it a day by noon with 60 bucks in your pocket isnt bad for a 13 year old.
reffing 8 year olds is not a hard gig. there is no off sides, basically hold up a flag when it goes out of bounds and help the kids keep both feet down when they throw it in. tell em goal kick a few times and voila, game is over.
damn kids these days are spoiled.
You should get a cut of that. Transport fees, agent fee, etc. Teach them the reality of taxes and expenses while they're young.
Reffing 8 year olds is actually a pretty important job. While missing calls means nothing, generally getting them right and communicating the calls to the players can really help accelerate their development. Conversely, having refs that don’t care and/ or haven’t a clue about the rules sucks.
The Catholic schools have a great system. 8th graders get their service hours in by reffing 3rd/ 4th grade games. These are usually pretty serious players. Often their parents are coaching one of their younger siblings. Inevitably, a little one will whine and be told to shut it. These games flow well. The refs know the rules, and care. The kids work hard, learn and have fun.
For older kids, refs with official looking patches work the games. Normally, they both don’t care and don’t know the rules. Literally making coaches ref and kids running lines would be a massive improvement.
Travel costs might blow the budget on that!
We have had a few guys in their early-mid 20s come over from Canada or the US on working holiday type arrangements and do some ref work. The one guy is from Michigan and worked high level college games in the US. He ended up coming back to NZ just
before Covid closed the borders. He refs a lot of games now and travels the country for the high end league. Really good ref, and fun guy. He never has to buy a beer when he's back in town here. He also looks after the rest of the crew so they all get covered after the games lol.
I should have mentioned that travel costs would have to be covered, of course. enjoyed myself the handful of times I’ve been over there, though, so maybe I could be convinced haha.
but yeah when I was in college and for a few years after, I reffed some of the junior leagues in the US. It was fun but there was a lot of windshield time and crappy flights. Best though was doing some of the AAU and the for profit, competitive roller hockey tournaments. Ended up working a few world’s and jr Olympics events, which were usually in fun cities.
Great article on how out of control things are.
kxno.iheart.com
How This NCAA Ref Knows We Are Doomed As A Society | KXnO
Des Moines Sports Station, 1460 KXnO, and Now on 106.3 FM!
Last edited:
i'm not sure i agree that kids doing drugs is such a good idea.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
As much as I give you crap, I wouldn't want to read about some new soccer ref having a massive coronary and traumatizing a bunch of kids.
I umpired Little League in Okinawa in 1971 when I was in the Army. There wasn’t much trouble with parents back then. Of course, the fact that I was a 1st Lieutenant might have helped keep them in line.
30-plus years later I umpired in the Santa Monica Little League for a season. The good part of it was that I got to umpire games featuring two dominating pitchers: Max Fried, who now is the ace of the Atlanta Braves, and Josh Rosen, who went on to QB at UCLA and the NFL. When they pitched, not many parents complained about calls. In other situations, there were some bad parents out there but the League had a strict code of conduct for parents that kept it under control. Still, one year plus some fill-in games the next season was enough for me.
I thought baseball was fairly easy to officiate. I can’t imagine officiating youth basketball or football.
30-plus years later I umpired in the Santa Monica Little League for a season. The good part of it was that I got to umpire games featuring two dominating pitchers: Max Fried, who now is the ace of the Atlanta Braves, and Josh Rosen, who went on to QB at UCLA and the NFL. When they pitched, not many parents complained about calls. In other situations, there were some bad parents out there but the League had a strict code of conduct for parents that kept it under control. Still, one year plus some fill-in games the next season was enough for me.
I thought baseball was fairly easy to officiate. I can’t imagine officiating youth basketball or football.
that's because the Great Santini's tour in Okinawa was over 8 years prior to that time..he gave his son Ben a hell of an awful time at his hoops games...
pittdan77
Athletic Director
This is like the 10th time that local media got a story idea from one of my posts, seriously.
www.wtae.com
I know some of you dont agree with this but a lot of this comes down to money. They are saying JV and Middle School sports may have to be cut due to lack of refs? Pay them a ton of money and pass the fees onto the parents. "OK, if you want Billy to play Middle School Soccer this season, we need $500 to pay refs." Then make the refs "rich." For $150/game, me and Zelda will be doing soccer games all weekend. $1000/weekend. Straight cash (???). That's like $20K-$30K for an easy side hustle while getting some really good exercise
Pennsylvania sees shortage of high school officials in many sports
Imagine the impact on sports without referees and umpires. That's a reality in some places in Pennsylvania in certain sports when it comes to high school officials.
www.wtae.com
I know some of you dont agree with this but a lot of this comes down to money. They are saying JV and Middle School sports may have to be cut due to lack of refs? Pay them a ton of money and pass the fees onto the parents. "OK, if you want Billy to play Middle School Soccer this season, we need $500 to pay refs." Then make the refs "rich." For $150/game, me and Zelda will be doing soccer games all weekend. $1000/weekend. Straight cash (???). That's like $20K-$30K for an easy side hustle while getting some really good exercise
pittdan77
Athletic Director
Have you ever made it through a topic on this board without jumping to the extremes?This is like the 10th time that local media got a story idea from one of my posts, seriously.
Pennsylvania sees shortage of high school officials in many sports
Imagine the impact on sports without referees and umpires. That's a reality in some places in Pennsylvania in certain sports when it comes to high school officials.
I know some of you dont agree with this but a lot of this comes down to money. They are saying JV and Middle School sports may have to be cut due to lack of refs? Pay them a ton of money and pass the fees onto the parents. "OK, if you want Billy to play Middle School Soccer this season, we need $500 to pay refs." Then make the refs "rich." For $150/game, me and Zelda will be doing soccer games all weekend. $1000/weekend. Straight cash (???). That's like $20K-$30K for an easy side hustle while getting some really good exercise
First lines.."call me a joker, call me a fool"...I think we got ourselves an SMF theme song...
