Fun? Scary? Funny? Interesting? Ridiculous? You pick.

After reading a post from my cousins blog about his sister's hilarious softball game (visit mygeniusmind.blogspot.com, sorry I don't know how to enclose links, and quite frankly, I don't want to figure out right now), I started realizing all of the similar experiences that I've had, so I thought that I'd blog about them. I may need to break this into several posts, because the more I think about it, the more I realize the ridiculous amount of funny sports experiences that I've had.

Experience #1:
After getting certified as a soccer ref, I learned about the offsides rule. For people who don't understand, offsides is when the offensive team passes the ball to one of their players who is behind the defending teams defenders (if it doesn't make sense, don't lose any sleep over it). However, there are some other keys to this rule, one of which is that if there is a player who is in an offside position, but does not receive the ball, they may still be offsides. As the ref you have to decide IF THEY AFFECT THE PLAY. Keep that in mind as I relate this first story.

I was sidelining a 9-year-old girls game (meaning that I was a referee on the sideline) with to very good clubs. In my opinion, to have kids in that level of competition at 9 years old, girl or boy, and be putting the amount of pressure that their coaches and parents put on them, is ridiculous. Anyway, it was either tied or Avalanche was down by one, but either way, Avalanche got the ball came down on an attack. One of their girls was literally standing next to the goalie, COMPLETELY OFFSIDES! One of the girls shot the ball, on the side of the goalie that the offside-girl was on and scored. I raised my flag, figuring that no way under heaven was the offside-girl not involved in the play. The coach (luckily on the other side of the field) erupted. He was cussing at me across the field and freaking out, it was...exciting.

Experience #2:
You may remember me mentioning a while ago about scoring against a team whose players I know and have played with. During that game, lots of things happened, which I may tell you some other time. At one particular point though, the opposite sideline was getting frustrated about the game getting called one-sided. This was ridiculous however, because they were being WAY more physical/cheap (which isn't always a bad thing, but you can't be aggresive and not expect a few calls against you). At one point we had parents from both sides yelling across at each other to shut up and you're wrong and all kinds of crap. At this precise moment, one of my teammates who was on the sideline with me stood up, put his arms up with the thumbs-up sign, and yelled "TWO THUMBS UP FOR MATURITY!" It was seriously one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Experience #3:
Another sidelining experience: This time U-15 boys, the two teams clearly hated each other and were extremely physical. One of the teams, like in the previous experience, was much more physical than the other team, and consequently was getting more fouls called against it. Again, the parents (who were right behind me) started getting frustrated with the center ref about calling the game fairly. One dad in particular was flipping out and cussing up a storm.

At one point in the game one of the firebird players (the team who felt it was picked on) received the ball on the sideline, and was shoulder-challenged by an opposing player, knocking him to the ground. I'll never know if this was a foul or not, it was probably the most borderline tackle that I've ever seen, but regardless, the center ref did not call a foul. This caused the sideline to erupt even more viciously, and provoked more four-letter words from the certain dad.

Of course the firebird player was also fired up, partly because of his ballistic sideline supporters, therefore he proceeded to chase the player down from behind and slide-tackle his ankles, with no intent of getting the ball. Upon this, the ref awarded him a straight red-card, which means that he was thrown out of the game and his team had to play a man down. Again, I'm not sure if this foul deserved a straight red-card, but after all the crap that the ref had received from the sideline, the call should not have been very surprising to anyone. Again, after this call, the sideline erupted again, provoking very colorful language from the man right behind me. Finally, the ref had had enough of this wonderful gentleman, and he told him,

"Sir, this is your last warning, if I hear from you again, I'll ask you to go to your car." After just a minute or two, the man erupted over a call again.

"I'm sorry sir, but I've given you your warning, and I need you to go to your car." the ref told him. The man stood defiantly and looked at him as if to say "Why don't you make me?"

"Fine," the ref replied and he blew his whistle three times, indicating that the game was over (by the way, the firebirds were losing by one) despite the fact that there was at least twenty more minutes of the game.

"Fine, I'll leave" the man said, realizing that he may cost his team the game.

"Sorry, I just blew the game, it's over, there's nothing I can do now." the ref replied. After we shook hands with the teams, we (the refs) noticed the rather-upset gentleman walking menacingly towards us across the field. At this point I was seriously scared for my life. The coach called him off and, with some convincing, he left, but I've gotta admit, I was scared to death to walk home.

This post is already really long, but because none of these experiences were particularly funny, I'll share one last one.

Experience #4:
My first comp team was the fogo tigres (fire tigers) coached by my dad and his friend Jose. We were playing a game in ogden with a horrible ref who knew every player on the other team by name, and never left the center circle due to her lack of running ability. Our assistant coach, Jose, has been the referee for games at a high level and recognized her inability to make good calls because of her poor positioning related to the play of the game. Jose kept begging her to get closer to the play so that she could see fouls more easily.

"I'm right where I need to be." she replied.

"Maybe if you were in good enough shape, you COULD get to where you need to be!" Jose said, finally losing his cool completely.

Yeah, he got a yellow card.



Still nothing on my story. Have you gotten anything, Kate?