The Man in Stripes: A Referee Dynasty

[RPI-Fan]

I'll give this a shot for something new...

I'm a senior in high school, and as my 'part-time job', I'm a youth soccer referee. While you're laughing, I'll give some of the details: I get payed roughly $20/hour, can set my own working dates and times, and get to do something I like.

Of course, I'm sure you're all still laughing. Nevertheless, I've found my niche with this job, and even am starting to enjoy it a little bit.

Oh, and about the stripes. No, I don't wear a black and white striped shirt. I wear a gold jersey-ish thing with pinstripes - it's pretty standard.

So, anyways, this is how I got started. A couple years ago, I was looking into what it took to be a referee, and found out you just needed an 18-hour class (didn't seem that bad - also, at the time, I had no clue about the job's pay or anything). So I signed up for it, and expected to learn quite a bit about the rules of the game. Of course, that didn't happen. Having had played for quite a few years, I knew basically all the rules. So I probably needed about 2 hours of instruction, and yet received 18. Nevertheless, the last day of the class included a test on which you needed to score a 75.

I finished 20 minutes into the 2 hours allocated, and got my score back quickly (was an overlay answer grid). The guy looked at me, with a blank stare on his face (this guy was the teacher - many times during the class I'd put my head down and sleep through his speeches - he ragged on me a few times about it, talking about how he couldn't just walk me through the test). It was as if somebody had just shot his dog. After seeing the "98%" on top of the paper, he started to say something about cheating before I walked away and sat down (no, I didn't cheat). And then others, mostly adults, went up and got their scores, many in the 70's and 80's (these are the jackasses who always ask questions on every single topic no matter how boring).

I left that day with my badge, and sent in an order for my reffing gear (shirt, socks, etc.). I got my schedule and had quite a few games. I started off weak, but got better as the year went on. I was even called to ref a few weekend tournaments - these were pretty tiring, as I was generally outside all day in either hot weather or pouring rain.

The next year was much the same, except I was probably a bit more confident on the field. I got a few more calls for tournaments, and seemed to get a bit more respect among the coaches and players. (I reffed everything between 8 year olds and 16 year olds)

This year, I've gotten even more games than before, and the lady seems to be calling me about lots of tournaments. This is good, because it means mucho $$$.

So anyways, the season starts tomorrow. I'm playing in a game at 1pm, and have a reffing double-header at 4pm and 5:30pm. I'll be tired afterwords, but each game pays ~$25. For those of you weak at math, that's ~$50 in 3 hours, or more than $15/hour.

I'll post an update on how the games went, and whether or not my reffing form seems to have improved from last season.

Oh, and fear not, there'll be stories of crazed players, coaches, and parents, and all the gory details of yellow and red cards. And of course, my witty retorts to participants idiotic comments.

~rpi-fan