Working Man?

As Gavin has taken a break from playing soccer this year to work on strength and mobility with his body and he has wanted to figure out better ways to make some money, he joined the USSF Soccer Referee ranks!  The training starts out with a fairly quick 4hr online class and then an in person practice session with some practice squads, but outside of that they turn you loose on real games!  Gavin's first opportunity was a collection of 7 games (3 games one day and 4 games the next) in a tournament at Dick's Sporting Goods park refereeing mostly U14-U15 games.  This is the first squad he was put with and it couldn't have been a better crew.  One of the guys had been ref'ing for 25 years and another guy at least 15 years.  They took Gavin under his wing and showed him the ropes.

He was sooo nervous his first game.  He looked the part and tried to make the calls he saw to the best of his ability.  I actually sat behind him on the side line to give him some encouragement and advice along the way.  I think the center referee corrected him a few times, but overall he made it through it and I was so proud of him.

Refereeing is very challenging and people can yell at you even when you are doing a good job.  That is tough for a 14 year old kid to take sometimes but he did great.  I watched all three of his games and it really was a fun time for me to just be with him and go through this experience with him.  I will say that by the end of day two and almost seven games later, we were both happy to have a week off before any further games.  Also, through almost seven games I think he made something like $250 dollars for the weekend which was a large amount of money for a kid. We will see if he likes it enough to continue, but I think it will stick.