Turkey Tournament 2012 is moving closer!

Jay agreed to be our Referee Administrator for the tournament!  He wondered a bit about what he would have to do, besides looking cool in his shades, master of his domain, kind of like the Road Boss in "Cool Hand Luke."

Essentially, the RA has to round up sufficient 'local' referees to to handle any matches that won't be covered by referee teams provided by the participating teams; verifying the eligibility/appropriateness of the referee teams provided by said teams; making sure all games are covered; and finally verifying that the referees for a particular team fulfilled their obligations thus can get their deposit back.

I have been corresponding with other regions about their tournaments, one RC told me that 70% of the teams forfeit their referee deposit!  (which run about $300 per tournament!).

So far, this is the swag (Stuff We All Get):

Region tournament pins - Everyone
T-shirts - Everyone
Ref Patch - Referee
Ref Flipping Coin - Referee
Ref Food - three games and you get a greasy burger and limp french fries

U19 anyone?

Managed to get out and do the line on a U19 game this weekend. These kids are fast & whine a lot. They want to have you whistle every infraction for their opponents, but want you to 'let them play' when it comes to their actions. There was the usual amount of pushing and pulling, the CR handed out simultaneous red cards,mbut got the restart wrong. Now, it could be logical to want to restart with a dropped ball,but one foul preceded the misconduct (because after the foul play stopped, making the following action misconduct) so the restart shoud be a DFK for the other team. We had a spectacular save on my end, which resulted in a deflection. The defense fouled the kicker which resulted in a PK - but I wonder if we should have cautioned the defender for USB. I am going to rethink this each time a foul occurs in the penalty area...

Practice, anyone?

One kid showed up to practice today... I'm not sure why everyone seems to think Spring soccer doesn't matter. The games are real, butler are lucky to field the minimum numbers of players. We get blown out, but the kids don't show up to practice, so it's a vicious circle.

Our Spring Team has a name!

All the players who attended the game go to vote.

The winner:  The Blue Fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Game #2

Played our second game.  Have to say...we were terrible!  Got crushed during the first half; players taking the ball from teammates; keepers forgetting to use their hands, players showing up at the last minute.

However, after a big pep talk at halftime, it was like parting the Red Sea. My forwards started staying forward, my keeper grabbed the ball, and instead of being outscored 6-0 in the 2nd half, we were outscored 2-0!  Even better, we managed to get the ball towards the opposing goal!  Missed the midfield, however.

What I still can't figure out, is why the players will BACK UP when the other team gets the ball. It is quite odd; they will run towards the ball, but when the opposing team get it, instead of aggressively heading for the ball, they will back up.  I guess they think that they are somehow stopping the ball, but all they do is give the other team time to go around them.

That's is what we are going to work on next week!

How to create a Region Web site, Part II

Expanding on yesterday's post of page types, this is broken down by the type of information consumer.
(The formatting didn't port very well, so I am going to make it an ordered list...)

 

The breakdown is the information consumer, what type of information they need, then the page(s).

 

 

Parent -> Looking for: Registration

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Registration Information Page
• Registration Checklists

Parent -> Looking for: Team Info

•  Calendar
• Team Listings (Coach info)
• Directory (Commissioner, RCA, ARC, RC)
• Game Schedules
• Statistics
• Regional Guidelines

Parent -> Looking for: Game Info

• Calendar 
• Team Listings
• Game Schedules
• Field Listings
• Field Conditions

Parent -> Wanting to make: Complaint

• Announcements
• Regional Guidelines
• Directory (Registrar, Commissioner, RCA,RRA, ARC, RC, Board)
• Parent Handbook

Parent -> Wanting to: Volunteer

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Volunteer Listing
• Directory (Board)

Coach -> Looking for: Information

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Team Listings
• Game Schedules
• Stats
• Field Listings
• Field Condition
• Directory (Commissioner, RCA, ARC, RC, Board)
• Training
• Regional Guidelines

Coach -> Wanting to make: Complaint

• Announcements
• Regional Guidelines
• Directory ( Commissioner, RCA,RRA, ARC, RC) 

 

Referee -> Looking for: Information

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Game Schedules
• Refschedule.com
• Field Listings
• Field Condition
• Laws of the Game (FIFA, AYSO National Guidelines)
• Regional Guidelines
• Directory (DRI, RRA, Board)

Referee:  Looking to make: Complaint

• Announcements
• Regional Guidelines
• Laws of the Game
• Directory ( DRI, RRA, RC)

Board Member: RC, ARC

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Directory (Board)
• eAYSO

Board Member: RCA (Regional Coach Administrator)

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Team Listings (Coach info)
• eAYSO
• Regional Guidelines
• Parent Handbook
• Directory (Board)

Board Member: RRA (Regional Referee Administrator)

•  Announcements
• Calendar
• Laws of the Game
• Refschedule.com
• Directory (Board)

Board Member: Commissioner

• Announcements
• Calendar
• Parent Handbook
• Commissioner Guidelines
• eAYSO
• Directory (Board)

Volunteer:

•  Announcements
• Calendar
• Volunteer Listing
• Directory (Board)

Spring League is upon us!

Spring League is upon us!

I have to admit, Shutterfly is a GREAT tool for team management.  They have a deal with AYSO to generate the teams automatically, and it is fantastic!  We got an email stating that several thousand sites need to be setup to keep the deal going, and I really hope that they keep it!

Besides having the roster automatically generated, you can add and change the rosters.  You can add photos.  You can put in the practice schedules and games with the address; parents can get a map autogenerated.  And the system will automatically email reminders for each event.  You can assign things like the snack schedule, or let parents sign up themselves.  You can send mass emails to the whole team, and parents can up load photos and videos to share.

All in all, it makes managing the team a piece of cake!

I spent a little time tidying up the roster with new players, then entered the games and 1st meeting, then sent out a mass email to everyone so they can view it and sign up for snacks and refereeing.

Shutterfly - not just for photo albums anymore!

12 years and counting...

Wow.  We started playing soccer 12 years ago; since that time I've been a coach, a referee, a referee instructor, referee instructor evaluator, statistician, an Assistant Regional Comissioner, and Director or Referee Instruction.  My blogging here has been sporadic; I doubt that anyone has ever read these pages (except me).  But I press on...

Our region's leadership has been a problem for the past 5 years.  The RC was checking out his 2nd year - to be fair, his predecessor had done some serious damage to the volunteer infrastructure and the new guy was done.  The next RC finished the job, driving away most of the serious volunteers, and keeping sycophants and cronies around, ignoring the regional guidelines for her self serving purposes, and generally screwing up the region and driving away whole families.

We have a new RC now; we have a board that seems willing to work hard together - but we still are having trouble with lone wolfs making unilateral decisions affecting other people and their jobs.  This has already lead to the registrar resigning in disgust. 

Hopefully, all will get better; it can hardly get any worse!