We’re all told there are not enough referees or not to yell at referees, not to talk back to referees, or to be kind to referees, etc.  Well, guess what?  That’s all nice until a set of referees let your child’s youth game turn into a UFC match.  No joke.  In too many instances, referees are not controlling overly-aggressive play and that play is endangering your kids.  We all have seen this and we all feel helpless that nothing can be done.  After-all, is there any accountability for bad refereeing and if not, what’s the recourse.  Let’s discuss this.

1.  Does your school, club, referee organization, etc. have a means to track a referee who continually has children injured in the games he/she referees?  If not, why?
2. Is there a legitimate means to report such referees?  If not, why?
3. Does anyone track dangerous referees and issue warnings or terminate contracts if they have a history of allowing unsafe play?  if not, why?
4. Agencies hide the names of the referees.  Why?  You want to file a complaint and you cannot.  Why?  You know the names of most anyone who is around your child.  Why hide referee names?  Nope.
5. Simply put…WHERE’S THE ACCOUNTABILITY?

Too many youth athletes are getting hurt by overly physical play that referees are not controlling

Truthfully, this isn’t about a referee making some bad calls.  We’re all human.  We all make mistakes.  This issue is about referees who are allowing or even encouraging, unsafe game play.  Due to their actions,  kids are getting hurt.  And, they are getting hurt bad!  If a coach protects a child and yells at the referee for dangerous situations, the coach will tend to get a yellow or red card.  This is absurd.  Referees cannot be immune to criticism if it involves the safety of the athletes.  No exceptions.

In addition, why aren’t there licensed athletic trainers at EVERY  high school and club match? If a coach cannot advocate for your child, certainly they can.  What’s the excuse for not having enough athletic trainers?  Too much money?  Really?  Teachers get paid more than athletic trainers and they do not deal with potentially life threatening/altering situations on a daily basis.  The playing field is a dangerous place.  The classroom doesn’t tend to be.  It’s time for school systems and clubs/organizations to pay the money and have able-bodied medical staff at ALL games.  No excuses.

It’s time for youth sport safety to actually become youth sport safety.  We’ve had enough talk.  Talk gets nothing done.  We need action.

If there are not enough referees, then guess what…no games.  If the referees are bad, then get rid of them. Referees allowed to work and risk the safety of kids.  This is unacceptable.  There’s no excuse for this.  We cannot simply let the injuries to continue while justifying it by saying there are not enough referees and the ones we have are bad.  That’s not cutting it.  Never has.  Never will.   Let’s say your child gets hurt.  Guess what?  You can’t do anything!

The amount of youth sports injuries is staggering.  Not having qualified personnel on the sideline to assist with injuries is almost criminal.  Bad referees need to go.  How is this done?  You cannot do anything about them and this has to change.

At Don’t Be A Meathead, we work to find solutions for problems, especially when they involve youth athletes. Who’s advocating for them?  People talk and talk but nothing gets done.  This is what we propose.

1. There is no need to hide the names of referees at youth games.  This makes it impossible to file a complaint against the referee.  Unacceptable.  The names of the referees should be made public.  The coaches’ names are public.  Why the secrecy?
2. Hand out/email evaluations to the coaches after each game.  Keep a record of these.
3.  There must be a mechanism to report safety issues at games to the referee licensing body.
4. The licensing body must maintain a record of complaints with each referee.
5. If the safety record of a referee or team of referees is continually bad, then the referee(s) must be terminated.
6. Each high school game and travel level club game must have a licensed athletic trainer present.  You pay the referees to be there.  Pay the athletic trainers.  They save lives.  For that matter, there should be a licensed athletic trainer at all sanctioned youth games at all levels.  The cost is not too great to have trained medical staff that everyone chips in for.  Any additional cost is worthwhile to prevent damage to your child.
7. On the flip side, if there are referees that are constantly getting praise about how they handle their games, then they should be rewarded.  Yes, good work gets rewarded.  This is the way it should be.

This is a good start.  We need to stop putting referees on an untouchable pedestal and hold them responsible for irresponsible care for the youth athletes.  I’ll say it again for those who think referees should be untouchable.  Don’t Be A Meathead!  This is about referees who allow games to get out of hand.  Perhaps they give out yellow cards, but not red cards, because they don’t want to file paperwork?  The referees who have a bit too much ego, hold grudges against teams, and allow for improper player behavior.  Yeah, those.  It’s time to do the right thing.  Why wait for more injuries?

You know what?  If your child is involved in a game where the referee allows for unacceptable play and you have video evidence, let us know.  We’ll have a talk with you and attach it to this blog.  We must do better and this is easier to achieve if we all work to fix the problem.

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