A Day With California Soccer’s Referee Young Guns
It’s the tenth weekend of the 2015 SFSFL season, and the game returns to the historic Boxer Stadium, home of the SFSFL for the last 50 years, way before the MLS was even a dream. As Premier Division players warm up and prepare to give their final pep talks, league commissioner and SFSFL President, Leo Schoomilof, inspects the field for one last time before the action begins.
Officiating at these games are some of the west coast’s brightest young referees, carefully trained and selected by the California North Referee Administration (or CNRA for short). Like players and coaches, referees have their own passion for the beautiful game and many have dreams of officiating at the highest level possible. So the CNRA – which has 12,000 referees on it’s books – has created a new Tier 1 group of referees, comprising of over 40 talented men and women who represent the future of soccer in America.
It’s a long commute for many of them, but the high intensity and the complexity of the game is a worthwhile effort for referees who are looking to gain experience at the highest level possible at amateur level. In turn, players in San Francisco’s historic league, and many other of CSAN’s 19 affiliates, have the comfort of knowing that their games are officiated by the very best of America’s young rising talent.
THe CNRA’s Tier 1 officials get together once a month for specialized training and receive special funding to travel to other states across the United States for vital refereeing experience.
“The Tier 1 program would be nothing without the assignors”, he adds, “They are the guys and gals who make this program work”.
Referee assignors are responsible for “assigning” the right referees to the right games. This is often a tricky task as the assignor needs to understand an official’s strengths and abilities as well as the level of competition of each team and the type of game they will be overseeing.
By the way, if you’re interested in becoming an referee, you might want to pay a visit to the CNRA website: http://www.cnra.net/
Getting involved is easy, you’ll get to meet great new people and you’ll enjoy playing one of the most important roles in our precious game.
