DC-area soccer league gets tough with bratty parents

Then the idiot parent would have just found some other way to be a jackass.

 

HAND BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

My dad reffed a couple of my games when I was a kid when one of the referees didn't show up. He basically made the line calls while the trained ref made the difficult rulings.

 

I've watched a shit-ton of soccer in my life and I still get confused by offsides calls every now and again.

 

Right you are. And the best are the coaches/parents who bitch about an offside call when it happens on the other end of the field.

I refereed youth soccer for nine years through middle school, high school and college. I used to love it. Good money, got to be around soccer, and I have some great stories - good and bad. But I stopped because my last game, I was confronted on the field by a parent of a girl on an under-16 team. His daughter's team had just WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP of an elite tournament. Should be happy, right? Nope. He stands at midfield, calls me out when I walk by him in a nice way.

"Hey ref! Can I ask you something?"

I stood there about five yards away. He seemed polite, so I said, "Sure."

"You're pretty pathetic, you know that right?"

"Yep, this is the easiest job in the world and that was by far the worst game I've ever done. You're right. Easy money, easy job. You should give it a try."

Fucker blinked a couple times before saying, "I bet I could do a better job than you."

I stared him down for about 10 seconds before I left. I realized then that I never wanted to referee again.

 

HIGH KICK!!!!

 

I would have taken him up on that bet. Put a few dollars down (whatever you could afford) to see if he showed up at next year's referee sign-ups.

 

Take the offsides call in soccer and translate to a balk in baseball.

Every time the pitcher makes any sort of move all of the dumbass parents are screaming BALK! BALK!

They don't have a clue what a fucking balk is.

 

"Hey ref! Can I ask you something?"

I stood there about five yards away. He seemed polite, so I said, "Sure."

"You're pretty pathetic, you know that right?"

And this person is raising children.

We are fucking doomed.

 

The dirty secret of youth sports is that the vast majority of players, coaches and parents come to games and leave without any craziness going on. The other is that best leagues and coaches spell out expected conduct and leave the lines of communication open to parents, rather than treating them like gnats to be brushed off, so any problems are taken care of off the field. At least that's been my experience as a parent and coach.

 

And quite honestly, nothing annoys me more any more than going to college basketball games, because every freaking person in the stands feels like he's more qualified to do the ref's job than the ref is.

EVERY call is wrong.

The home team NEVER commits a foul.

The road team commits a three-second violation on EVERY possession.

I swear, it seems like no one actually comes to game to watch the game. All they do is bitch at the refs.