New Record! Tossed From A Soccer Game In The FIRST Half!

The boys in the home colors had a bad week.  The Orange and Black lost 6-1 to a team they beat in May on Thursday night.  Lost yesterday morning by a goal, game started at 0830 hours, and this morning?  Had to be in Park City at 0700, because the game started at 0800!  That's awful.

Today's game didn't start well.  About a half hour in, the side judge (or as they call him now, AR, Assistant Referee) blew a call so bad, it should go down in history as the example of a guy not paying attention.  Three guys are behind our defense as the ball goes over their heads, and one of their guys goes in completely alone, and scores.  How could he not?

I was sitting on the other half of the field, and I could see it.  It was so bad, DEB could SEE it!  Kidding, she couldn't see it, I'm just making a point.

The coaches go nuts, and rightly so.  The other parents are really letting the ref have it.

I kept my mouth shut, and I'm going to tell you why.

I learned years ago, that if someone on OUR sideline says anything to a ref?  He's going to think it's me.  Even when it isn't.  I'm about 300 pounds, almost six feet tall, still have the, "shock" of an Afro I wore when we were in high school, but now it's white and since I'm no longer in law enforcement, I tend to let it get long, and wearing a bright ORANGE, Murray Max t-shirt or sweatshirt.  I'm easy to see.  You can find me on Google Earth.  So even if I don't say shit, I get accused of saying it anyway.

So, I try to limit my yelling to things like, "Good hustle, Murray", "Way to go, Trenton", "Shoot, Danny!"

But this morning?  Well, lets just say I can see where this is going.  The ref is getting all over Frank and Andy, and it's real apparent to me after all my time in the, "reading people so I can kill them before they kill me first" business, that this guy is looking for any excuse to throw one of them out.

He knows his linesman blew the call.  Knows it with all his heart, but can't, "man up" and admit it, or overrule the linesman, so he has to find a reason to throw SOMEONE out of the game, so everyone will shut up and quit reminding him of it. 

This is where I decide to step in.

After he comes over and yells at the coach's to keep quiet, the other parents are still letting him have it.  So, he turns around, comes back to our sideline, and lets go with, "Coach, if you can't control your parents, I'm going to give you a Red Card!"

Oh, he's REALLY reaching now, because no one has sworn at him, called him a name, or otherwise been abusive, they've just been asking why the offside call WASN'T made?  They aren't impugning his integrity, they are asking for an explanation.

Like I said, I can see where this is going.  So as soon as he threatened to throw out a coach, I looked at, Deb and told her, "I'm going to take the hit for this one today."  She knew what I meant, and didn't even TRY to dissuade me from doing it.  She knew that as soon as I gave him a reason to throw ME out, he'd lay off the coaches.

"How can you hold the coach responsible for his parents behavior?  You're responsible for you Linesman and he just screwed up BIG TIME!  Why aren't YOU getting thrown out of the game?!"

That bomb had a laser sight on it.  "You're out of here!", he bellowed.

"You can't throw me out!  I'm leaving, because I can't stand to watch YOU work!"  And I left.

Mission accomplished.  He left the coaches alone the rest of the game.  I watched it from the parking lot.  My son had four shots on goal, and I wish he'd have scored, but it was not to be.  And the Murray boys dropped a third one in a row.  By ONE goal.  Wonder which one?

I won't repeat my words to the linesman who blew the call when I was on my way out, but I will say that I questioned his sobriety this morning and the night before and, a suggested that he was not worthy of working kids sports.  My observations were deemed appropriate by a parent of a guest player we had, who I don't know, who told me my observations were not only correct, but appropriately expressed.  Made me feel better.

But that's not all.  I was far enough away in the parking lot up the hill, watching the game, that I couldn't hear much of what was going on, except for, Coach Andy's occasional cry of, "COME ON!" after a, "no call" foul on one of our guys.  But it was told to me later, that the next team to play on that field was watching while warming up.  And they told the ref they would refuse to play, if the linesman who blew the call against our kids was allowed to work the game.

I guess they shifted him to some other field so the game could go on.

I'm not always right, and I don't always do the right thing.  But I refuse to see my kid, and his buddies get screwed by incompetent, lazy, jerk offs taking a pay day for sort of paying attention to a kids game.  If the boys take the game as seriously as they do and you want to ref it?  You should too.

And if you don't?  Well, I probably won't shoot you.  But I will verbally kick your ass.