In an effort to develop a referee recruitment program, I met with Scott Helin (Alaska State Referee Administrator) and Lori Stoneburner (President of the Alaska Amateur Soccer Association) last night. As a result of the meeting, I believe that we will create an incentive packet to encourage adult players to take the leap and become referees. Among its features:

• The class time will be shortened (grade 9 official)
  
• The class will take place on one Saturday, in early May and will be free
• Each new referee will receive a packet containing 2 shirts, shorts, socks, flags and a whistle at no cost
• Soccer Alaska will waive player fees for those individuals that certify as officials through this program
  
• The new officials are only committed to doing 10 games throughout the summer, 8 of them with full pay

We will firm up plans for this package in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for updates. As always, have any bright ideas on how to increase our pool of referees? Let me know and we will gladly incorporate them into this program, or start fresh with yours.

As promised the new toy thing is kicking in, so on to league matters.

I've been getting a few complaints about the referees grabbing their cards just a little too quickly these days, specifically young officials and those that are new to the state. Normally I am completely in the corner of the boys and girls in black/yellow/red/blue and now the very stunning green, but in indoor such a card penalizes your team for a full 4 minutes, which can very much affect a game. Therefore this complaint needs to be looked into.

Unfortunately team management usually requires on the job training, so those of you being officiated by a youngster, please recognize that they are nervous and very little verbal, or physical interaction is required before he/she feels that they have to protect themselves. The experienced ones are a different story. Because of our small referee pool teams and officials meet up many times during the season. In turn, opinions about each other are formed very quickly and carried from game to game. The referee's challenge is to forget what an ass, or hack a player was in a prior game and view each event with complete neutrality. How successful they are in doing that ultimately defines their ability to call a fair and safe game.

As a league president it is paramount to support the officials and their actions during games. But knowing the unique challenges that they face each and every event, specifically as they officiate the same team for the third time in 2 weeks, it seems prudent to keep an open mind and allow for the possibility that the players may not be the problem during a game, but rather the referee's inability to forget their last match. Please don't expect a bunch of card reversals, especially if an ejection took place, but we are open to looking into specific instances of potential referee partiality. We will also continue to work with the Referee's Association to encourage ongoing referee training and develop ways to increase the number of adult officials.

Welcome

For a while I've threatened to keep the players, managers, coaches and referees of the Soccer Alaska league updated on a more regular basis. Crating a weekly, or monthly newsletter was cumbersome, but I am certain that this blog will do the trick.

Between Nick Stramp, the league administrator, Lisa Short, the web designer and myself, there should be information, news, or tidbits to get out frequently. My goal is to do this on a regular basis, but like a new toy, undoubtedly I will play with this blog quite a bit initially and eventually set into a nice 2-3 times per week routine.

Most importantly, the blog is interactive and a vehicle to provide feedback either on the posts, or ongoing league issues. I'm new enough that I'm not sure if the replies are posted immediately, or can be edited (some may need to be), but we'll find out together.

So, let the games begin.