A quarter million steps

I wear a pedometer while refereeing soccer. Today while I ARed the U16 final, I passed 250,000 total steps as a referee. I always wondered how my steps compared to actual distance, so at last weeks tournament for the younger players, I also wore my GPS to measure and then compare to the pedometer. Works out to about 1666 steps per kilometer, so as a referee, I've run a total of 150km over two seasons. My first thought was "Wow, 150km!" but then I thought it doesn't seem like very much when spread out over games and 2 years. No doubt there are runners who do 150km a month. I know on the cross Canada bike trip years ago, I'd do that in a day.

I drew rough approximations of fields on the GPS track. This is three games before the battery died. Big rectangle was my field. I had no linesmen, so not exactly picture perfect diagonal system. Leaf and the boys came to visit at one point, the side tracks to the small rectangles are playing with Mars when he had to kick a ball in every net on the tiny fields. Curvy bit to the bottom leads to snack bar, playground and washrooms.

U16 final today was brilliant, a very exciting and close game. I was an AR (linesman) for the first time, and Center wasn't used to having ARs. Red team was undefeated all season. Blue team scored early to go up one nil, then should have had a PK but for confusion between referee and myself. I didn't raise the flag because he was five feet from play and I thought it should be his decision, but his angle was blocked so he looked to me. I should have done a better job discussing signals before the match. Anyway Red scored an equalizer, then the go ahead goal with seconds left in the first half. Blue with a equalizer in the second half. 2-2. Red coach calls a time-out! Ah, the delicious irony... For non-soccer fanatics, there are no time-outs in soccer. Delicious irony because it happened to be the only coach I've ever had to expel from the field of play. Earlier in the season, he disputed an offside call (it is not an offence to be in an offside position, coach!), then went on a ten minute profanity laced tirade at a U12 game. Anyway, a big part of his ranting was about the rules and how he understands all of them and tries to teach his players the rules but alas the stupid fucking referee doesn't know the rules, blah blah fucking blah. Nice knowledge of the Laws, Mr. Timeout!

Game ends up going to extra time, Blue scores the golden goal to win the championship. I feel bad for red! I coached them the last three years and had the same thing happen the first year - undefeated regular season, then a first and only loss in the final. Heartbreaking. Only one more game as a ref for me this summer, the Geriatrics Final (17 and older) on Monday. Then a break for 6 weeks until high school season starts up.

Showing my first yellow card

My second year/third season as a referee and finally had to show my first yellow card. One of my former players of course, and she should know better... Asked her to remove her earrings before the match started, noticed in the second half she still had them in. Which was weird not to notice earlier, but she was playing defence on a team of 11 vs a team that only had seven show up, so I didn't get close enough to notice until she was moved up to forward for the second half. Yellow for USB.

Jewelry is one of those things that is starting to annoy me. It is on the registration forms that no jewelry is permitted. Its in the laws of the game, and the intention is to prevent injury to self or others. Before every single game I have to tell players to remove jewelry, I tell the coaches to remind their players that they can't have jewelry, and yet every game I'm sending players to the sideline to take off earrings or watches or bracelets or necklaces. Which makes me the mean old referee. There is the usual litany of excuses. "I've always worn it before", "The other referee lets me" (unfortunately, this one is true), "I can't take it out/the hole will close over", "They are only little ear/nose studs". I even had a coach ask me what could be done to change the rules. I told him to appeal to FIFA.

I was getting lukewarm support for my 'strictness' using the argument that someone could get hurt. So now I use the magic word "liability". If someone gets hurt I get sued, you the coach gets sued, you the player gets sued, the player's parents get sued, and the league administrators get sued. Since none of the above have liability insurance (even if we did it wouldn't matter because the laws clearly say no jewelry) that argument worked.

Refereeing my first Adult game

Our local league is very small. Its all co-ed, there are only four teams in each age division, and multiple ages play on the same team. I used to coach 'Old Timers' and had a range of kids from 12-17 on my team. After grade eleven they are supposed to move on to the 'Geriatric' division, where there are four adult teams.

I had been refereeing U12 and U10 this summer, but was finding the littler ones didn't present much of a challenge or much exercise. Their enthusiasm for the game was a refreshing recharge after giving up coaching, but I wanted some more competitive games to warm up for the boys high school season this fall.

I was extremely nervous beforehand. These guys (and girls) have never had a referee before! All our adult refs play in the division so there has never been someone available. They called all their own fouls, ball in/out, offsides, and whatnot themselves according to the collective understanding (or misunderstanding ;) of the laws of the game. Hard to walk into that and establish a presence.

It was not my best game by any means, but serviceable. I've been off for two weeks with a vacation and then the stomach flu, so didn't feel I had my legs yet. I did better than expected with keeping up with play, but much room for improvement there. It was a very back and forth game. One team would pressure, then the defending team would pound it down the field to their high forwards and off I'd charge to the other end of the field. The ball would turn over and be blasted back to the other half and I'd run all the way back again. I use a pedometer in all my games, I had as many steps in the first half as I normally do in a full match. More than a couple times in the game I didn't have the gas to get to the penalty area as quickly as I should have. Missed a few fouls and what probably should have been a penalty kick by being out of position.

I had coached about half of the players on one team, and maybe a quarter on the other, plus played recreationally with a handful more of the older players. Knowing the players, I went in expected an amount of dissent from certain ones, but turns out I expected it from the wrong guys. Blue team was playing with only 10 but made a very good game of it in the first half. Green's outstanding keeper was unbeatable. As his former high school coach, I wish I could take even the smallest amount of credit, but I can't. 2-0 Green at the half. Blue scored early in the second to make it close, but then Green got a third, and the wheels fell off.

That's when the chirping started. From some of my favourite boys I coached in high school. Nothing overt, but careful conversations within hearing about the unfairness of the ref and he called this why didn't he call that and blah blah blah. Funny how players always forget the calls that go their way whan complaining about bias. I unleashed one of the most powerful tools in my arsenal - selective listening. Figured ignoring was the best bet since they didn't use profanity and was quiet enough to not listen to. Ironic how much it reminded me of coaching them on the high school team. When we struggled, which was often, these were the guys who could never say "I need to work harder", or "I can do better". It was all about blaming teammates, the coach, the 4-4-2 system, or the referee. Hard to come back with that kind of attitude. 5-1 the final for Green.

The other thing that reminded me of coaching high school was the total lack of midfield presence by both teams, particularly in the second half. Used to drive me nuts as a coach. Drives me nuts as a referee because all the extra running. The attacking team would have all their forwards and midfielders up in the penalty area against the defending team's defence and some mids, and all their defence back in their own half marking the defending team's forwards and a mid or two. 30 yards of basically empty space in between the two groupings.

Anyway, things I need to work on for next game. Fitness obviously. 33 pounds down from my high, but another 10 or 12 would be a big help. I'm thinking some cycling so as not to put wear on my knees. I also need to work on foul recognition. I've had a lot of trouble with this. I'm still a new enough referee that it isn't instinctive. I see a possible foul, I process the possible foul, I consider if it was a foul or not, I think about blowing the whistle, but 3 seconds have gone by and the play has moved on. I'm hoping that as I gain experience I will instantly recognize fouls and not have to think about it. It would be nice to have an assessment or some kind of mentoring system in our league, but believe it or not, I'm the only certified referee in the league. I also want to get a little stricter next game. I'm usually a firm believer in letting the players play if both teams are happy the level of physicality, but there was a fair amount of fouling going on, not all of which I called. I figured I'd let them get used to the idea of having a referee before I start calling all kinds of fouls they've never seen fit to call themselves.

BTW 11550 steps at end of match. Not sure how this works out to distance. I have a GPS that I've been thinking about pocketing for an U12 match and then comparing linear distance on that vs steps on pedometer. I would guess each step averages out to about half a meter, or about 6 km over the course of the game.

I've lost 20 pounds since April!

Which is pretty exciting, even though 10 of them were 'relost' since my last "I've lost 20 lbs" note in October '08, just before Odin was born. I ended up gaining 10 of those back eating cafeteria food while I was back at school for the winter. Getting under 200 has been a long and arduous battle, but I'm down to 190 pounds (from 220), my lightest in years. Still a long way off my twenty year 'normal' weight of 155. I think I'd like to be a healthy 180. Leaf has had a hard time losing pregnancy pounds this time, rather than just me. Dieting together is much easier. We made a deal that if we both meet our target weight, we'll buy a Wii.

Haven't really followed any special or fad diet, because they are all stupid and don't work. Cut out chips and candy, still drinking a lot of tea, and moderate exercise. I referee soccer twice a week (six to 10 thousand steps on my pedometer each game), and try to get out kayaking once or twice as well - usually about 6km each time. My secret for the last 5 pounds was stomach flu. I should start my own fad diet - the barf diet. Seriously, I'm surprised there aren't clinics where people can go to be deliberately infected with stomach flu and jabbed with an IV in order to lose weight. Maybe I should create one and become rich and famous and have Tom Vu-like infomercials. "You so fat!" "You come now I make you skinny, fat boy!"