To all girls in grades 6-8:

This message concerns training for those wishing to become new intramural referees. This clinic is designed to teach you to referee second (and third) grade NGS intramural games.

Training consists of two parts: a 2-hour instructional clinic and an on-field observation session. Both parts must be completed if one wishes to become a referee:

  1. The first part, the instructional clinic, will be held: Wednesday, April 3, from 6-8 PM, at Oak Hill Middle School (exact room # to be posted on the outer doors on the evening of the clinic).
  2. The second part is the observation session. It involves watching and asking questions of an experienced referee as he works second grade games. This will take place the first week of the season – Saturday afternoon April 6. The exact time and location is not known yet, but there are likely to be 3 sessions, probably at the Brown/Oak Hill fields, in the 12:00-5:00 PM range. You should plan on spending about an hour and a half at one of these sessions so that you can watch one full game. Since this is the general time frame of the games you would be eligible to ref, if you expect to be ‘booked’ for many Saturday afternoons, reffing may not be right for you at this time. If you can’t make the April 6 observation, (or if we’re rained out) sessions will be held in subsequent weeks (but can’t continue indefinitely).

We are only able to accommodate a limited number of ‘students’, with priority given to those closed out from previous year(s). If you are interested in attending you must e-mail Jeff Brenner jeff.brenner(at)comcast.net indicating your interest. You must also provide us with the following contact information:

  • Name of the potential referee
  • Date of Birth and school grade
  • Home Address and ZIP
  • Home and cell phone numbers
  • E-mail address(es)
  • Soccer playing status for this spring (i.e. BAYS, intramural, club, not playing)

Acceptance is not ‘first come, first served’, as we seek diversity in age and other factors, but we do need to hear from people within a week or so. You may receive a phone call seeking further information about your likely availability and level of commitment. We strive to inform people of their status at least a week before the clinic. Due to one or two people every year who seem to try and circumvent the process, we must stress that only those who have been ‘accepted’ will be considered eligible to referee.

A final word about ‘commitment’. We don’t expect anyone to be available to referee every Saturday, but we do ask families to think carefully about their child’s likely availability in the Saturday 12-5pm time frame. Many things are not in your control, such as your own soccer game schedules, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, etc. But if you do foresee significant limitations in availability, this might not be the right thing for you right now. There are modest up-front costs (mostly a timing device and a whistle), and those who end up unable to work at least a few games not only won’t make any money, but, more importantly, are unlikely to improve as a ref and find it something they enjoy. We ask people to make a full year (spring/fall) commitment, as the fall tends to be when we have a serious fall-off in young referees and end up with far too many games lacking a referee, which is a real disservice to our youngest players, their coaches, and their families.

CONTACT: Jeff Brenner: jeff.brenner(at)comcast.net

Ioannis Kyratzoglou

NGS Referee Committee

Update:

This message will try to clarify/differentiate the various training(s) for young referees that are coming up over the next 4 weeks:

There are Grade 9, Licensed referee courses happening in March. Anyone taking one is probably already signed up. This is a full day course that prepares referees mainly for 6v6 Travel (BAYS) games, and they would start working on lower level U9 and U10 games this spring. Since these games are fairly similar to fourth grade intramural (IM) games, there might also be opportunities for these newly licensed referees to work these IM games.

There is a clinic for new/first time IM referees being offered Wednesday, April 3. A longish message went out about this yesterday. This clinic trains refs specifically to work second grade (and eventually third grade) NGS IM games. That message contains a great deal of additional information about the clinic and how to begin the ‘registration’ process.

There is, for the first time, another clinic being offered April 3 that is an ‘advanced IM referee clinic’ designed to prepare refs who took the ‘new ref’ clinic in a prior year, and have already done several second and third grade games, to work fourth grade (and older) IM games. A separate invitation has already gone out to most of the refs who would be eligible for this clinic. Anyone just hearing about this for the first time should contact Jeff and/or Ioannis if interested.

No one should attend more than one of these sessions. There is no single right way to learn about reffing. Many start through the IM clinic with younger IM games; many start with a Grade 9 Licensed Referee course and work Travel games from the outset. Whatever the path, we try, within our limited personpower resources, to provide mentoring and supervision, as no amount of classroom training can fully prepare a young ref for what it’s really like ‘on the pitch’.

We hope this has been of some help in clarifying things. Please be in touch with either of us if you still have questions.

Best to all,

Jeff Brenner, jeff.brenner(at)comcast.net

Ioannis Kyratzoglou, ioannis(at)mitre.org

NGS Referee Committee

(aka ‘The Ref Guys’)