August 6th, 2009
Its been a while since I last posted so I’m sorry about that. I will do a quick recap of what has happened this summer: A lot of timing events (many many road races) and a lot of reffing. Just by a quick count I would say I have officiated at least 75 games or so. I don’t ref many tournaments because I just don’t have the time on the weekends.
Top Minnesota Male Referee - USA Cup 2009
However, I did ref the Wal-Mart All-American Cup (where I handed out my first red card of the year), the NSC Cup (where I did the U-16 girls championship game (as the center)), and the USA Cup (where I was upgraded, for the tournament, to a Grade 5 referee and named Top Minnesota Male Referee of the Tournament). I also reffed the MYSA Summer State Tournament. For me the highlight of this summer’s reffing season has been how melow most of my games have been. I have given out the least amount of cards all season (both yellows and reds). Most of my games have had very little fouls and very little goals. I have only had a couple of bad games but nothing too bad. My reffing has taken off this season because I’m letting the players play this year. I’ve learned how to have the game flow and to let some of the little fouls go and take risks so that the game has flow. I’m calling an average of 15 fouls a game (the last couple I have been calling less than 10 per game). I can’t wait for next season as I will continue to work on getting my State Referee badge and start moving up the ladder more. Well I’ll post more later about all the timing that I have done this summer.
Posted in Reffing, Soccer, Youth | No Comments »
April 13th, 2009
Today was the day I finally broke the 10 mile barrier for a single run for 2009! I ran for 1 hour and 30 minutes! It was about 12.5 or 13 miles. It was great. Well not really, haha. I started out running 3.5 miles into the wind and the rain. It was really bad. However, I fought through it. Next I went into Van Peenan Park and ran in there until 1 hour and 6 minutes. Then the rest on the roads. Time really flies when you run on trials. It really makes running much more enjoyable. I can’t wait for the next time I get to do a long run. I did however feel like crap after 1 hour and fought the pain of stopping all the way back to Luther. But I’m glad I did it and I’m ready for an easy run tomorrow, haha. Well until next time, happy trails!
Posted in Running | No Comments »
April 12th, 2009
3rd Place - Courtesy of Gary Westlund, Charities Challenge
Timing an event is hard enough (or can be). And even racing can be hard enough. However, if you put the two together and combine the pressure of both can be overwhelming. I know many timers who have tried to do both and they have had mixed results. However, their problem was that they didn’t have any helpers to free them up. I on the other hand didn’t have to worry too much about the timing today because my brother (Danny) did all the raceday registration and all I had to do was enter the bib numbers into the computer. We had a wireless timer so the computer could stay put and be away from everyone else without having to worry about cords and such. We had volunteers running the timer and taking the tags off the runners. For me I really didn’t have to worry about the timing, I rarely do. My race however wasn’t too bad, I felt good the whole way and ran nearly even splits of 9:03 & 9:05 (1.5 miles each). I didn’t break 18:00 but I did come close (18:09). The course is fast, but with the wind at the start and right after the midway point was hard to deal with and slowed me down a little bit. I was in third place the whole race and just couldn’t close on the leaders who beat be with times of: 17:21 & 17:41. I got beat the amazing Amy Lyons, who ran great but just couldn’t hold on to Brian Davenport. It was great and I was happy with my time, with the training I have been doing (about 5 miles a day for about 4 months) this was a pretty good showing for me. I plan to start stepping up my training this week to get more miles in. I’m just trying to stay healthy so i can get a great summer of training in for cross country season. Any way, enough about that results can be found here: http://wayzataresults.com/roadraces/2009/RiseNShine/.
Courtsey of Gary Westlund - Charities Challenge
Posted in Racing, Road Race, Running, Timing, Wayzata Results | No Comments »
April 11th, 2009
I got a quick and painful introduction into the world of the Pole Vault. I have heard that it can be one of the worst events to officiate because of how long it can get. And it can be very very long. I was the head official at the Lee Krough Inviational hosted at Gustavus Adolphus College. It was a windy day and with 28 women in the pole vault and 37 in the men. It took us 2.5 hours to get through the women’s competition and over 4 hours for the men. However, it was a great experience, there was a lot of great helpers to move the event along. However, some stupid coaches lied to me to get their athletes to compete. Two athletes (men) showed up not on the list and one of their coaches lied to me and said that it was ok and that he got approval from the meet director. Well as it turns out he didn’t get approval to compete and the meet director came over and told them that they could but they had to pay a fee before they competed. After that the meet director came back and told me that one of the competitors that they couldn’t compete. That athlete’s coach did not tell him that he couldn’t compete. He was pissed when i told him. However, I didn’t care, because you don’t just show up to a big college meet and expect to compete. It is really mind boggling. However, it was a great experience. I would love to try my luck at starting a meet. However, I will have to wait for a that chance. Well until next time!
Posted in Reffing, Track | No Comments »
April 11th, 2009
Ok, reading the title you must think that I mean someone got killed. No I’m not going down that road. What I’m talking is my experience at West Delaware, IA this past Thursday. I’ll start from the beginning. So, I arrived at the field and I met the AD (athletic director), he was nice and we started talking about timing and track meets and I might have picked up another cross country meet for next fall (YES!!!). Anyway, I was the head referee for the varsity game (two man crew). The game was ok three yellow cards. Ok on the junior varsity game, it was pretty mellow, nothing too much going on. In the second half the play was moving down toward my end and I stopped moving to let the play go by and a player didn’t see me and knocked me over. He hit me directly on the knee and it was really painful, I thought it was going to swell up, but it was fine after awhile. I also landed pretty hard on my head and I head a headache the whole way home (4 hour drive). I also had a cut on the back of my ear. It was a great game however, I had a great referee partner who backed me up and we worked great together. Any way got to write another!
Posted in High School, Reffing, Soccer | No Comments »
April 8th, 2009
Well the first games of the season are complete. Nothing like starting off the season right where we left off, cold and windy. I drove three hours to get to Decorah for a youth soccer game (U-13 Girls). It was somewhat warm in Minnesota before I left and slowly got colder as I approached Rochester. Once I got past Rochester the temp dropped and the wind and rain started. However it was just a lite rain but very windy. Well I got to the field and the field is located across the dike next to the high school soccer field. One of the windiest places I have ever reffed. Well anyway back to the story, I got there and one of my assistants beat me to the games (unheard of in youth soccer!). Anyway we walked to our spot and got ready to go, and then my other assistant shows up. He kind of had cocky attitude, but not over the top, just normal for his age. As we got closer to starting I realized that I left my flags in my car (my nice ones that I love to use, because they look professional). Any way I ran to get them because the other assistant didn’t have the best looking ones. Once I got back the assistant that showed up late said, “his were just as good as those for this game. It’s just Decorah United.” While I didn’t say anything to him about that comment it got me thinking inside, that while it might not be the most professional game it is still very important to the kids and the parents and we as officials need to portray that attitude (that each game is like the world cup final). My first impression of him was no matter what call he made would come with a big wave of doubt because of his attitude toward the game. However, getting past that was quick because I always trust my AR’s (for the most part). As the game progressed nothing was really happening, Decorah was getting scored on pretty quick and the game was well out of their reach. The only real “incident” happened in the second half when a Decorah girl tripped a Waukon girl. Not a hard trip or foul just basic. Then as the Decorah girl was getting up her teammate came over and gave her a high five, in front of the Waukon parents. Well I thought I could just turn a blind eye to it and nothing would happen but then I heard the Waukon parents saying, “that’s unsporting, that’s not sportsman like”. So to diffuse the situation I stop the restart and brought both girls over and said, “First off, that foul was tactical, second, if I see you two slapping hands like that again I will card you, understand?” The parents love it and didn’t say another word about it for the rest of the game. Overall a little kid could have reffed that game without a problem.
On Tuesday I had my first high school game of the year, Decorah vs. Waverly-Shell Rock. A girls varsity and jv double header. I didn’t know what to epect, for some reason I could only remember a slower game. This game was well played, a little sloppy but still good. Only two fouls in the first half and four goals. Decorah was down 4-0 at half time. We started the second half and the game progressed, both teams had some good chances on goal. However, Decorah was just a little off (probably a little early season rust). I’m sure it will come off within the next couple games. Overall it wasn’t a bad game. Both AR’s were very good. I can’t say enough about them, good machinics and skill. Game reports for both below.
Decorah United vs. Waukon
Gender: Female
Age Group: U-13
Level: N/A
Position: Referee
Game Length: 70 mins – Full Time
Final Score: Decorah – 0, Waukon – 5
Cards: None
Mile Ran: 2.75
Decorah vs. Waverly-Shell Rock
Gender: Female
Age Group: High School
Level: Varsity
Position: Referee
Game Length: 80 mins – Full Time
Final Score: Decorah – 0, Waverly-Shell Rock – 4
Cards: None
Miles Ran: 4.76
Decorah vs. Waverly-Shell Rock
Gender: Female
Age Group: High School
Level: Junior Varsity
Position: Assistant Referee
Game Length: 40 mins – Full Time
Final Score: Decorah – 0, Waverly-Shell Rock – 2
Cards: None
Miles Ran: 1.11
Posted in High School, Reffing, Soccer, Youth | No Comments »
April 8th, 2009
Sorry for the delay in getting the new site up, I’ve been busy with both school and work. But it’s finally up and running. I’m currently getting a news site and maybe a forum or something else. If you have ideas please let me know. Well I’m going to write another now so I’ll be back
Posted in Rambling | No Comments »