Referees: Ask Us Anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone is a troll. It's ignorant and racist to pretend this bias doesn't exist sometimes. I think the refs have jumped in with some thoughtful comments.

Let’s be clear. No, it’s not ignorant or racist to hold a different viewpoint. Just because you choose to feel a certain way or state a viewpoint, does not make it factual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone is a troll. It's ignorant and racist to pretend this bias doesn't exist sometimes. I think the refs have jumped in with some thoughtful comments.

What bias? What is pretending?
Cite 1 example of a referee call influenced by bias. Once
You have then someone can refute it or agree with it. Until then
You are just pretending something exists or doesn’t exist.

Perhaps asserting people are ignorant and racist because they don’t agree with something unproven or even demonstrated is a bit of the pot calling a kettle something

So if someone doesn’t believe in Jesus or Santa does that mean they are ignorant and biased??!

- I have watched a referee give a female coach a caution for slamming her clipboard on the bench while her male counterpart had been shouting and cursing most of the game and never got talked to
- I have many times watched referees ignore the female coach prematch and try to talk to a manager or assistant coach
- I have witnessed more than once referees calling a lot of calls against the mostly hispanic team and none against their opponent in a game which was equal in the fouls to call--I have also seen this go the other way where the hispanic team wore the halo and the mostly white team the horns.

There are biases out there. I have not personally witnessed a referee clearly show a bias against a black player but I would have to assume that is just my limited experience not that it doesn't happen sometimes. To assume there are no biased referees out there seems pretty naive. Referees, like everyone else, can be influenced by the halo and horns effect, whether that is caused by a player starting out with a nasty challenge in the first few minutes or caused by biases which already exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone is a troll. It's ignorant and racist to pretend this bias doesn't exist sometimes. I think the refs have jumped in with some thoughtful comments.

What bias? What is pretending?
Cite 1 example of a referee call influenced by bias. Once
You have then someone can refute it or agree with it. Until then
You are just pretending something exists or doesn’t exist.

Perhaps asserting people are ignorant and racist because they don’t agree with something unproven or even demonstrated is a bit of the pot calling a kettle something

So if someone doesn’t believe in Jesus or Santa does that mean they are ignorant and biased??!

You're feeding them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone is a troll. It's ignorant and racist to pretend this bias doesn't exist sometimes. I think the refs have jumped in with some thoughtful comments.

What bias? What is pretending?
Cite 1 example of a referee call influenced by bias. Once
You have then someone can refute it or agree with it. Until then
You are just pretending something exists or doesn’t exist.

Perhaps asserting people are ignorant and racist because they don’t agree with something unproven or even demonstrated is a bit of the pot calling a kettle something

So if someone doesn’t believe in Jesus or Santa does that mean they are ignorant and biased??!

- I have watched a referee give a female coach a caution for slamming her clipboard on the bench while her male counterpart had been shouting and cursing most of the game and never got talked to
- I have many times watched referees ignore the female coach prematch and try to talk to a manager or assistant coach
- I have witnessed more than once referees calling a lot of calls against the mostly hispanic team and none against their opponent in a game which was equal in the fouls to call--I have also seen this go the other way where the hispanic team wore the halo and the mostly white team the horns.

There are biases out there. I have not personally witnessed a referee clearly show a bias against a black player but I would have to assume that is just my limited experience not that it doesn't happen sometimes. To assume there are no biased referees out there seems pretty naive. Referees, like everyone else, can be influenced by the halo and horns effect, whether that is caused by a player starting out with a nasty challenge in the first few minutes or caused by biases which already exist.

You just said you have no personal knowledge of such a bias. Is it naive to assume evil does not exist because we have not encountered it? Or is it naive to assume it does exist even though we have not encountered it. Hopefully the refs you encounter make decisions based on what that actually see and not on what they or you assume

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone is a troll. It's ignorant and racist to pretend this bias doesn't exist sometimes. I think the refs have jumped in with some thoughtful comments.

What bias? What is pretending?
Cite 1 example of a referee call influenced by bias. Once
You have then someone can refute it or agree with it. Until then
You are just pretending something exists or doesn’t exist.

Perhaps asserting people are ignorant and racist because they don’t agree with something unproven or even demonstrated is a bit of the pot calling a kettle something

So if someone doesn’t believe in Jesus or Santa does that mean they are ignorant and biased??!

- I have watched a referee give a female coach a caution for slamming her clipboard on the bench while her male counterpart had been shouting and cursing most of the game and never got talked to
- I have many times watched referees ignore the female coach prematch and try to talk to a manager or assistant coach
- I have witnessed more than once referees calling a lot of calls against the mostly hispanic team and none against their opponent in a game which was equal in the fouls to call--I have also seen this go the other way where the hispanic team wore the halo and the mostly white team the horns.

There are biases out there. I have not personally witnessed a referee clearly show a bias against a black player but I would have to assume that is just my limited experience not that it doesn't happen sometimes. To assume there are no biased referees out there seems pretty naive. Referees, like everyone else, can be influenced by the halo and horns effect, whether that is caused by a player starting out with a nasty challenge in the first few minutes or caused by biases which already exist.

You just said you have no personal knowledge of such a bias. Is it naive to assume evil does not exist because we have not encountered it? Or is it naive to assume it does exist even though we have not encountered it. Hopefully the refs you encounter make decisions based on what that actually see and not on what they or you assume

Stop accusing everyone of crimes without any evidence. It is not for nothing that the bible refers to satan as "the great accuser".

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:I think the difficulty here is determining how much we can extrapolate from anecdotes. I'm not sure there's any way to do a full survey. You can ask parents, but I guarantee you'll also find white parents who think they get the worst of the officiating. (Granted, 95% of them are whining.)

This is exactly the problem. Refs make bad calls all the time. In some cases, they make a dozen or more bad calls in a single game. Even more frequently, spectators think the ref made a bad call. Our troll here sees a bad call which goes against a black kid or a hispanic kid and ascribes it to racism - and from there wants to generalize and make this out to be a huge problem.

It isn't a huge problem. It's not even a tiny problem.

On the other hand parents whining is a problem. White parents, black parents, hispanic parents - pretty much any parents. And lets be honest, it's not just parents. It's a significant fraction of people who watch any sporting contest whatsoever when they have an emotional interest in the result. The ref is always crooked, and he's always calling for the other team.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if it's a huge problem or a tiny problem. You don't know either.
I have seen bad, seemingly biased calls, against black players, Hispanic players and Asian players. I have seen bad calls against white players. I don't know whether any of those were consciously or unconsciously motivated by bias or racism.

I have to say some of those calls against black, Hispanic or Asian kids did appear biased. These were not refs who were making bad calls the entire game, just with certain kids.

This is just a few games with three kids so I have a lot of years of this but I think it's disturbing that you are asserting that this problem does not exist when you have no way of knowing.

[Anonymous]

This is why the question was posed to the refs who in my opinion gave good and seemingly honest answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone is a troll. It's ignorant and racist to pretend this bias doesn't exist sometimes. I think the refs have jumped in with some thoughtful comments.

What bias? What is pretending?
Cite 1 example of a referee call influenced by bias. Once
You have then someone can refute it or agree with it. Until then
You are just pretending something exists or doesn’t exist.

Perhaps asserting people are ignorant and racist because they don’t agree with something unproven or even demonstrated is a bit of the pot calling a kettle something

So if someone doesn’t believe in Jesus or Santa does that mean they are ignorant and biased??!

- I have watched a referee give a female coach a caution for slamming her clipboard on the bench while her male counterpart had been shouting and cursing most of the game and never got talked to
- I have many times watched referees ignore the female coach prematch and try to talk to a manager or assistant coach
- I have witnessed more than once referees calling a lot of calls against the mostly hispanic team and none against their opponent in a game which was equal in the fouls to call--I have also seen this go the other way where the hispanic team wore the halo and the mostly white team the horns.

There are biases out there. I have not personally witnessed a referee clearly show a bias against a black player but I would have to assume that is just my limited experience not that it doesn't happen sometimes. To assume there are no biased referees out there seems pretty naive. Referees, like everyone else, can be influenced by the halo and horns effect, whether that is caused by a player starting out with a nasty challenge in the first few minutes or caused by biases which already exist.

Good post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if it's a huge problem or a tiny problem. You don't know either.

Yes I do know. I have watched hundreds of such games. My DS plays on a team which is mostly minority kids. I've seen good refs and bad refs. I've seen good calls and bad calls. I have not seen one ref who was clearly discriminating based on the kidsd' race. So - while it is almost certain that there are biased refs - given my sample size - I know beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt that the overwhelming majority of them are not - and thus the problem is insignificant

[Anonymous]

Question for you refs. Do you call the game strictly based on the rules or on what you believe is fair?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for you refs. Do you call the game strictly based on the rules or on what you believe is fair?

Do you have an example?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for you refs. Do you call the game strictly based on the rules or on what you believe is fair?

Fair is applying the laws equally to everyone so the answer to your question is yes and yes.

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:After reffing a couple of games at McLean on Sunday, I have this reminder for parents:

"He got the ball" does not mean "no foul was committed."

If you don't get that, please find a blackboard and write it 50 times like you're Bart Simpson.

Thank you.

Are you the ref that missed egregious calls in the mclean U11 boys games?

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:After reffing a couple of games at McLean on Sunday, I have this reminder for parents:

"He got the ball" does not mean "no foul was committed."

If you don't get that, please find a blackboard and write it 50 times like you're Bart Simpson.

Thank you.

Are you the ref that missed egregious calls in the mclean U11 boys games?

This past weekend? I was an AR for the McLean U11 and U12 games on Sunday. If that's what you're talking about, what calls do you think were missed? I can tell you the CVU coaches in the U-12 games were really angry that the center ref didn't give cards for some of the McLean fouls.

EDIT: The CCL games.

You commented on a center not giving cards...made me think of this. Just this weekend, I was speaking with a guy who was center referee for a very competitive, boys U13 NCSL D2 game. He told me that he gave a yellow card to someone. I didn't think anything of it and then he said...that was the first card he EVER gave to a kid U13 or younger. He's been a very active ref for 4 years. I thought this was incredible. He said that many refs don't like to or WON"T give cards to "little kids". I was amazed to hear this. An early maturing 12 year old boy can literally be twice the size of a late maturing 12 year old boy. To not give cards because of age is ridiculous. As RSD pointed out, if a foul is reckless that's a yellow card. If a foul is excessive, that's a red card. I can see letting a little foot up on a throw in for a U9 or U10 but after that...it's by the book. Not giving cards for tackles from behind, etc is going to get someone really hurt. Referees need to use cards and teach kids right from wrong starting at early ages.