Leave the Kids Who are Helping ALONE!

I Refereed my first Matches of the season last nite and I am quite happy to be mailing out letters to the Principal's of BOTH schools complimenting their JV and Varsity Coaches for excellent sportsmanship!

Do THE fans have the guts to Referee?

Despite EXCELLENT sportsmanship from the players and the coaches in most Girl's Varsity Volleyball Matches there are occasionally parents who want to Referee the game...... from their safe perch in the stands. I doubt many of them have the guts to actually be on the floor and Referee! Few people do.

Oh, it's pretty easy to Ref from the stands, but when you put on a Referee shirt & hang a whistle around the neck and realize there are numerous half crazed fans ready to challenge every call you make there are few folks willing to take on that responsibility.

In one Match a parent was hollering at one of the High School aged Line Judges when he disagreed with some of her calls.

Look folks, the AIA (Arizona Interscholastic Association) sends 2 Referees to each match. As a cost saving measure preferred by the schools who pay for the Referees, the AIA does NOT send paid Line Judges to Regular Season Matches.

So High School kids end up volunteering, or more likely, BEING volunteered by their Coaches, to do the Line Judging.

(My Grand Daughter all dressed out to Ref a Volleyball Match)

In a Varsity Match the Line Judges are usually JV Players, Freshman or Sophomores. many of which do not really want to be the Line Judge!!

It is NOT as easy as it looks from the stands. I know! I have done some line Judging in Post Seasons Play Off Matches.

This particular parent thought that he was being funny to holler, "Are you blind!?" at a Line Judge who had called a ball "IN" that, in his over inflated judgement, he thought was "OUT." From my perspective on the Referee Stand the ball was "IN."

Fans can holler at us adult Referees, up to a limit, if they want. But I ain't gonna let fans holler at the kids who do Line Judging.

So I asked the attending Athletic Director to speak to the fan with 3 choices-

1. Cheer for his team and stop yelling at the Line Judges.

2. Step onto the floor and take the Line Judge spot.

3. Yell one more time at the Line Judge and he would be ejected from the gym.

Since he was with the Visiting Team, and had traveled almost 3 hours to the game, he wisely decided to focus on cheering and not take the Line Judge spot.

So, come and cheer for your schools as loud and raucously as your want. You can take your chances and yell at the Ref's, too. Some Refs have less tolerance for that than others and you never know walking in the door if the Ref for that Match has a short fuse or not......

But leave the kids who are helping do Line Judging alone!