Referees Are People Too

Another sports day and we spent most of the morning and early afternoon at my younger son's soccer tournament. My friend and I picked up some trash left by some enthusiastic, yet environmentally challenged young soccer players. This may have counted for today's act of kindness, but keeping with the theme of sportsmanship mentioned earlier this week, I did something I have been wanting to do for months.

After two seasons (winter and spring) of sitting with the same group of parents cheering our kids on, I finally, finally had the courage to ask one of the moms to stop berating the referee. I said it nicely, in a joking manner, but I was nervous. She responded, in a half joking manner back, that when it comes to her kid, she will always defend him. I then pointed out (don't worry, keep reading, we don't get into brawl or anything like that) in the same manner, that this particular referee she was harassing, was about 15 years old, 16 tops. Her son would be there soon enough and how would she feel about a parent yelling at him.

I might add, for details sake, that in addition to being a young guy, he was the only referee in the game. Prior to the start he had asked the parents to please signal when the ball went out on the side of the field where we were sitting, as it was was hard for him to see from the far side. I'm not sure of the relevance of this bit of information, other than he was really just a kid doing the best he could. Another bit that may or may not be pertinent is that my son's team has only won one game the whole season. And the team they beat had not won any games at all. We are really pretty far beyond blaming the referee for the team's shortcomings.

During the next game not a negative word was heard from the sidelines. Coincidence or successful kindness intervention? I'm not sure, but I'm glad I spoke up.