Sunburned and Sore Feet: Fifteen Games in Three Days Plus the U.S. Sendoff in Hartford

Like many of my colleagues around the country, I spent the Memorial Day weekend on the pitch. I was up by 5am on Saturday and out the door fifteen minutes later so that I could make it down to the tournament by 7am for the eight o’clock kickoff.

There weren’t enough referees from the Mid-Hudson area to cover all the games, so tournament assignor Jose Vargas had to import folks like myself from other areas – half-a-dozen of us from the Albany area and at least double that from Westchester and New York City. Without our committment the three-day regional tournament wouldn’t have had enough officials. As it was, most of us worked an average of five games a day amidst the first hot, muggy spell of the year.

The level of play was some of the best I’d ever seen at a youth tournament with teams coming from as far away as Cleveland, Buffalo, Tornoto, Ottawa, New Hampshire, Boston, and North Carolina. Just like the dozens of officials on hand, these kids and their parents had all made huge sacrifices for the sport they love. As such, it was a real honor to be included in the event.

But the blazing sun and hot, muggy air took its toll on all of us, especially the refs, who worked upwards of six hours straight with little or no breaks. Besides terribly tired feet, my nearly clean-shaven dome soon changed from a palish hue to a tomatoey red despite regular applications of spf30 sunscreen.

We were all hurtin’ by the end of the first day, but managed to survive the ordeal. Thankfully, the players, coaches, and parents were by in large reasonable characters who respected the referees more than might typically be the case. This I attribute to the sophistication of everyone at the higher levels of amateur soccer. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of disagreements of one sort or another, but all in all we were generally appreciated for our service to the games.

Unfortunately, our hotel accomodations required that as many as five of us were forced to room together – a situation that really didn’t sit too well with us after the brutally long day we’d just put in on the pitch. I lucked out, however, as it was only me and two other guys from Queens who shared a room.

I’d already worked some matches with Nabil and Lahoucine earlier that day and was looking forward to learning more about my two new friends, both of whom came to America from the Muslim world. Nabil, I would learn, is a 32-year old Yemeni with four kids and Lahoucine is also 32, unmarried and childless, and originally from Morocco.

Being curious about foreign cultures I quizzed them extensively on our way to dinner and was suprised to learn that both of their homelands have large Jewish populations. This they told me after I joked with them that I hoped they wouldn’t mind rooming with a Jew.

Day 2 of the tournament I was scheduled for four straight, which meant I would be done around 2:30, giving me plenty of time to drive a couple of hours for the 7pm kickoff in Hartford for the US national team’s last tuneup before the World Cup. And with only about ten minutes remaining in my final game of the day as I was withering in the blistering sun, Jose came over to the touchline where I was working as an assistant (i.e. linesman) to ask if I could officiate one more before calling it a day. Not wanting to let him down and knowing that I’d still have about three hours to make to Hartford, I agreed to help out, thus giving one of my colleagues a break so that he wouldn’t have to ref SEVEN straight.

I could barely get my legs to move and I noticed that my assistants were running as little as possible too, but thankfully the field we were working on was pretty small for the Girls U-13 match. When it eventually ended I was so happy to trade my soccer shoes for flip-flops and head to Hartford.

Arriving about an hour early I stopped at a park along the banks of the Connecticut River to wash my feet and clean the dried salty sweat from my sticky body. Less than half-an-hour later with the sun muted behind some thin clouds west of Rentschler Field, I sat in my second-row seat at one corner of the field. About twenty feet in front of me was actor/comedian and diehard soccer fan Drew Carey snapping some photos as the US team warmed up at our end.

Throughout the first half I had an ongoing chat with a guy in front of me about some of the referee’s decisions. The home side thoroughly dominated Latvia – the tiny Baltic country that put in a respectable showing at the 2004 European Championships in a tough group that also included Germany, Holland, and the Czech Republic. The visitors seemed to forget that the match was a ‘friendly’, committing quite a few senseless fouls. The ref was usually on the spot with his whistle, but a few more cards might have been warranted in light of the fact that neither team had anything to play for and it was clear the US squad wanted to escape the evening without any injuries.

DaMarcus Beasley and Landon Donovan looked sharp and fast throughout, but it wasn’t until near the end of the opening period that the Americans finally went ahead, scoring their only goal when defender Steve Cherundolo whipped in a nice cross that Brian McBride pounded into the back of the net off the Latvian goalie’s fingertips with his most potent weapon – his head.

By comparison, the second half was much more dull as neither team had very many quality opportunities. And not wanting to get caught in the post-game traffic jam that Jill and I had encountered the previous August when we came here for a World Cup qualifier against Trinidad & Tobago, I bolted out of Gate A just as stoppage time was beginning. My plan worked to perfection as I barely made it out before the nearly 25,000 specatators began to clog the route to the exit.

By 11pm I was back at my hotel in Newburgh, hopeful that I would have a room to myself since I knew that Nabil and Lahoucine had already gone home as they weren’t planning to referee on the final day of the tournament. But somebody else – not affiliated with the tournament – was now in my room.

Up at the front desk the friendly clerk told me that housekeeping had assumed we had all checked out since none of our stuff was still in the room. But arrangements had already been made for me to stay in a different room just down the hall…and I had it all to myself.

Before calling it a night I was invited to have a beer with the coaching staff of the Toronto Lynx U16 Boys team – a squad I’d worked as an assistant for in my last game the previous day. During the 4 – nil demolition of their Boston-based opponents I’d obviously made quite an impression as their Manchester, England native head coach – Duncan – told me that I was the most likeable referee he’d met during the past couple of days. Most of all he appreciated my sense of humor and sarcasm – a quality he felt is sometimes missing from people in my line of work. Unfortunately, I told him, at the higher levels (he also coaches Toronto’s A-League sqaud) referee assessors prefer referees to maintain a totally serious, professional demeanor throughout the match.

Day 3 of the tournament was my lightest day of all – an 8am kickoff followed by a break, then me in the middle for the Girls U15 final and then as an assistant for the Boys U16 and Girls U16 finals respectively. By in large everything went quite smoothly and mercifully none of the matches required overtime.

Ironically, I was on hand for Duncan’s team’s 2 – nil championship game victory against a squad I’d officiated two days earlier. He was relentless with my colleague Carlos, who at halftime admitted his concern that the game was getting away from him a little. Our other colleague, a young up-and-comer named Ryan dos Reis, encouraged Carlos to caution a player (if necessary) early in the half to regain some control of the players. And I told Carlos to just ingnore Duncan’s non-stop rant, believing that the coach is just one of those guys who likes to talk a lot. Eventually, Carlos did have to tell Duncan that his patience was wearing thin and that seemed to work as the coach focused more on his players and less on Carlos from that point on.

At the end of our final final, around 5pm, Jose (Vargas) thanked us all very graciously for our contribution in making the weekend a complete success. And for what it’s worth, I got a call this morning from my local assignor letting me know that Jose had apparently had a chance to see me in action and had come to the conclusion that I was capable of handling any game that comes my way. It’s something that I already know about myself, but it means a lot to be recognized by someone of his stature in the refereeing world. Hopefully he’ll have another opportunity to see me in action sometime down the road.

Until next time…

peace,
ac