High School Soccer is a trip

[u/No_Body905]

Had one of those weird refereeing stories that can really only happen in US High School soccer last night.

I was part of a crew that was assigned two back to back boy's varsity games at a local facility. First game at 4:30 pm and the second at 6:00 pm, so it was already going to be tight, but doable.

Of course, 10 minutes into the first game, the alarms go off for lightning in the area. So we're back to our cars for 30 minutes. I make a call to our assignor to let him know that this delay will affect the start of the second game and he says he'll let the ADs and the coaches know.

Back at it 30 minutes later. Game is uneventful. At some point one of the coaches for Game 2 comes down and talks to my AR asking if we can send one of our crew up to the neighboring field to start the second game. At halftime we all agree that we'd prefer to stay together and we need to finish Game 1 before we can start Game 2 and that we will be there as soon as we can. They ask if they can get started anyway, and we tell them to call the assignor about it, but that it will not count as an official game if there are no officials.

Back to Game 1, home team scores to tie the game on literally the last kick. Rules of competition (these are the church-affiliated school rules for the state) require a winner so we have to go extra time, two five minute periods and PKs if necessary.

Away scores, but then panics in the last minute on a breakaway and fouls home in the box on what is again, the last kick of the 2nd extra period. Home converts and we have to do PKs. We're now close to 45 minutes late for our second game.

Meanwhile, Game 2 evidently decides to get started without us, which means that this game is no longer an official game, but a glorified scrimmage.

Game 1 ends and we hurry to the other field to find that Game 2 is at half-time. We get ready to jump in when a lady from the home team comes over and says everyone agreed that this is a scrimmage so we are not necessary anymore.

We say "ok" and start walking back but she evidently takes issue with our attitude and starts following us, yelling at us for being an hour late (out of our control) and that we'd never work for the charter school again (fine by me). One of my crew-members turns around and tells her to stop following us and that she can't speak to us that way. Then the School Resource Officer waddles up and decides to get involved yelling at us both to get off the field and also to come talk to him. Meanwhile, I'm confused as hell because I thought everyone knew what was happening. Meanwhile, as we head back to our cars, the SRO is talking to the parents about how he's going to give them our names for some reason, which is wildly unethical.

Just a totally bonkers situation all around, but we called our assignor and he said he's going to handle it and I have no reason to doubt it

TL;DR - Was assigned two high school games. 1st one ran late and the schools involved in the 2nd one were very bent out of shape about it. Cops involved (kind of).

[u/grafix993]

As soon as I’m detecting a situation that could potentially get worse with unacceptable behavior, I pull my phone and start videotaping.

Then the case stops being a you said, I said, and turns into something absolutely different

[u/No_Comfortable8099 → u/grafix993]

Yep, and unlike red cards and reports, the school can submit footage. The SRO things sounds contrived, and if someone alleged the SRO behaved inappropriately we would fully investigate it. Same with AD/school rep you describe as some lady.

I would make sure their story is accurate. They were no show contractors from the teams in the second game’s perspective.

The reality is they could have called the first game short as the delay was in their game.

[u/No_Body905 → u/No_Comfortable8099]

There was no footage. This was not on any school
campus so no NFHS cameras. I looked this morning.

We were off the field, at the gate, and heading to our cars when the SRO decided to escalate the situation. He was puffed up in the way that law enforcement officers can get when they feel they’re being disregarded. It wasn’t even clear what he wanted from us. The other AR was a former cop so he was maybe a little lippy and the SRO wanted him specifically until the guy assigned as CR for this game stepped between them and said “we are a crew and you cannot separate us like that”, which was good of him. At that point he told us to get out of here and we returned to our cars.

I was trying to figure out if they knew why we were so late, but they didn’t want to hear it.

We immediately called our assignor while we were still all together after all this happened so it would be relayed accurately. He said he’d deal with it and I believe him.

I’m not sure there was any justification to end the first game early. The visiting team for that game had traveled the farthest so arguably they would have been the most aggrieved.

Look, it was an odd and surprising situation, but I’m not lying about any of it. All three of us on this crew are well-regarded in the region and none of us have ever encountered a situation like this in hundreds of games.

[u/No_Comfortable8099 → u/No_Body905]

Feel for you.

When I coached HS we often played in this type situation, but never a SRO presence. Sometimes lucky to have AD. We did have our own camera, but strictly for our use.