People who personally know The Mess might want to sit down and take a deep breath before they read this week’s Monday Mess rant.
Now that you are ready for the shocker – The Mess would officially like to declare this week Referee Appreciation Week! There, we said it. Now pick yourself up off the floor.
The Mess had time to ample time to think about this topic over the weekend because there were only two home games and we were able to sit on the midfield stripe during the soccer games and listen to the coaches, fans and players all get upset with the officials on nearly every call. That’s when it hit us – who in their right mind would ever want to be an official for a high school or college game? Think about it. No matter how well you do your job you are always going to make someone unhappy. Every call you make – one team will be ok with it, the other team will most likely give you a dirty look and scream. For the entire game you will get criticized and yelled at by fans, players and coaches.
And here is one of the worst parts of being an official – you could referee a masterpiece and no one will ever say thank you or go out of their way to let you know you did a really good job. When was the last time you heard someone scream from the stands, “Hey ref, you are great. You are the best referee I have ever seen. I hope you never quit being a referee.”?
How’s that for job satisfaction? You never hear anything positive and always get yelled at for anything you do. Kind of makes working for this guy (Click on the link) look like a piece of cake.
What fans, coaches and players don’t realize is that referees might be one of the biggest concerns for high school and college sports. Next time you take in a high school or college game look at the officiating crew. Do you see a lot of younger officials these days? Of course not. Most officials that work the majority of the games are in their 40’s and 50’s. These are the officials that love the game and don’t mind getting verbally abused for an hour or two. Now what happens in 10-15 years when they can’t do any more games? The Mess doesn’t know.
It used to be where former players wanted to stay involved in the game so they went into officiating. These days former players don’t have a positive view of the officials (a principle that has been beaten into their head by parents, coaches and teammates) so they would never want to become one of the “hated” herd. And if there are younger athletes that start officiating after their playing days are over, they don’t stick with it for very long. That’s because they get burnt out from getting ridden from the time they step on the field until the time they leave. Nowadays officials even have to fear for their safety when players, fans and coaches have lost the ability to be rational when it comes to it “just being a game”. See video: Parent tries to attack football referee.
The problem that no one sees coming is that in 15-20 years there won’t be enough quality officials to work college games. The Mess gets to talk with many officiating crews during the year and they all say the same thing, “we have to do way too many games during the season.” The college officials in the sports that play more than 10 games a year (soccer, basketball, baseball, etc). are working 3-4 games per week for the entire season. And that is not even their full-time job. Once these officials retire there will not be a lot of younger officials wanting to get overused and then abused once they step on the field, court or diamond.
What if one day league officials had to tell players, “I know you’ve trained hard all offseason and you think this might be the year to win the MIAC title but unfortunately you can only play half the teams in the league because we can’t find enough refs to officiate all the games this year.” We hope that this won’t be the case and that younger officials will continue to be nurtured by the “old guard”.
The Mess hopes that everyone will think about what the ref has to go through before they start screaming and yelling at an official. We know it might be hard for some to not have a knee-jerk reaction and question the call out loud. In the end, The Mess really hopes that people will take the time to thank the official if he/she does a really good job and maybe say “keep up the good work”. Hopefully the trend of praising the officials, more than degrading them , will start younger athletes thinking about becoming a referee after their playing days are over.
One final note on the subject. This whole topic was brought into view for The Mess by my son. He started officiating soccer games last fall and really liked the job and earning some money. After a couple weeks this fall or having coaches yell at him, he has decided to take some time off and do something else. He was officiating 7 and 8-year-olds and did a good job. Unfortunately some coaches think at that age their teams are eligible to win the World Cup and games on Saturdays are life and death situations. It’s too bad. I have watched my son officiate and he would have been a good referee. Please think before you yell next time.
And last but certainly not least. To all the officials I yelled at during my coaching days – I am sorry. I will say that one thing I tried to do all the time was let the referee know if he did a good job after the game. I might have screamed and yelled (and maybe tossed a chair or two) but I always thanked them and let them know they were appreciated. To this day, many of my friends are former officials and I miss seeing them at games in the fall. I also want to congratulate two younger soccer officials that did a very good job this weekend – Matt Tiano and Anis Ben Tahar, keep up the good work you are a credit to the position!
The Monday Mess Video of the Week
Since the Monday Mess is throwing curve balls at the readers, this week we decided to put on a pair of shorter videos that will entertain and bring a smile to your face.
The first video features some unbelievable dance moves. Please note that the video hasn’t been slowed down or doctored in anyway. It is just a dancer with some ridiculous moves. Note – wait for a little while until the song speeds up and he really starts to throw it down. The video reminds The Mess of his moves at center court in memorial Auditorium last Wednesday night after he had to pay off a bet to the Cobber volleyball coaching staff for sweeping St. Thomas.
The second video features some other talented kids that turned a hobby into a huge You Tube and video success.
For both videos – these are the type of younger students and athletes that should be out reffing. The Mess is pretty sure no one yelled at them while making the videos and had them feeling like they should quit because it wasn’t worth all the hassle.
The Rest of the Mess
For the second straight weekend The Mess had it pretty easy. There were only two home games and three of the eight fall teams took the weekend off.
It was hit and miss for the Cobbers teams over the weekend. The football team went on the road and beat Gustavus in St. Peter. Terry Horan’s crew is now 2-0 on the road and 1-2 at home. We are trying to talk him into playing all the team’s games on the road this year. Can you say – Homecoming road trip?!!! The women’s soccer took care of business by blanking St. Mary’s. They are the complete opposite of the football team. They are 4-0 at home this year and 18-2-1 at “The Jake” since 2009. And yes, The Mess even went with the cheesy reference to the Wizard of Oz when coming up with the headline for the women’s soccer win: “There’s No Place Like Home.” Finally, women’s golf turned into the surprise team of the fall as they finished fourth at the MIAC Championship Meet over the weekend. They improved on their score from last year by a full 152 shots. The best part about the Cobber women’s golf team – they are all freshmen. Which brings us to our second cheesy headline of the weekend – “The Future’s So Bright, They Gotta Wear Shades.”
And that is exactly what The Mess did this weekend, wore shades and watched soccer. Can we get six more weekends of that?
The Mess Weekend Media Rewind
- Fargo Forum feature article on CC Swimming & Diving Coach Julie Lucier
- Video Highlights of the Cobber/St. Thomas volleyball match
The Mess Picture of the Weekend
Another men’s soccer picture takes the honors this week (and don’t be coming up with any snide remarks about The Mess playing favorites!). This picture is from the Cobber game against St. Mary’s. Once again the wining entry has all the great aspects you want in an action shot. The picture is of junior forward Jared Rice trying to maneuver the ball past the SMU goalie. Unfortunately he was unable to control the ball and put it in the back of the net. )
(You can click on the picture to see the larger version to get the full effect)
The Mess Photo Galleries of the Weekend
Check out the award-winning picture galleries from the weekend. The Mess also included the link to last week’s volleyball sweep over St. Thomas. Just in case you wanted to relive the great memory!
- Volleyball vs. Thomas
- Men’s & Women’s Golf at MIAC Meet
- Men’s Soccer vs. St. Mary’s
- Women’s Soccer vs. St. Mary’s
* Special thanks goes out to Sheldon Green, Isaac Vatnsdal and Ryan McCaughtry who took the awesome pictures from volleyball and soccer and to Greg Smith who shot the pics from the MIAC golf meet.
Click here to view all the galleries from the Cobber SID Flickr Page
“Now That’s A Big Mess” Stat Line of the Weekend
This week’s Big Mess Stat Line of the Week goes to Cobber women’s golfer Holly Karkela. Holly was the model of consistency at the MIAC Championship Meet over the weekend. Her final total for the three rounds was 252. Now ordinarily that would not be Mess Stat Line of the Week quality but when you look at the individual round scores you know why she is this week’s winner. Holly went out and shot an 84 in the first round, followed by an 84 in the second round and then came home on the final day with an….. (wait for it)…. an 84. Now The Mess has been known to play a round of golf or two in the summer and we can’t ever remember being consistent enough to post the same score three straight times. For that simple reason, Holly earns this week’s Stat Line of the Week.
Social Media Mess of the Week
Each week we will honor the best Cobber Twitter Tweet or Cobber Facebook post that we come across with our Twitter account or Facebook account
This week’s Social Media Mess of the Week winner lets us know that the winter sports are just around the corner. Since we are now in October, hockey can’t be far behind and that is what CC hockey player Kelly Andrew wanted to let everyone know with this Facebook post. “ New York Rangers and Cobbs – Champions this year… heard it here first!”
The Mess likes the predictions, especially the second part of that post. We’re not sure about the first prediction since last we checked, the Rangers haven’t brought Mark Messier out of retirement and everyone knows, that is the only way they can ever win the Cup!
Queens of the Mess
Once again the Mess goes plural with its Queen of the Mess award. This week we honor the Cobber Women’s Golf Team which finished in a tie for fourth place at the recently completed MIAC Championship Meet. It marks the first time since the 2004 season that CC has posted a top 4 finish at the conference meet. Their three-day total of 1,002 is 152 strokes better than last year and the best score of any CC team since the league went to the three-round format in 2006. The best part of the women’s golf team is that they are all frehmen which means that they will be a force to be reckoned with for three more years!
King of the Mess
The Mess had a couple of options this weekend but we are going to go with men’s golfer Pat Deitz. Deitz finished tied for 10th at the MIAC Championship Meet to earn All-Conference honors for the second time in the past three years. Although he was probably hoping for a better finish, he still is one of the only CC men’s golfers in program history to become a multiple All-MIAC honoree.
The Tom Burnett Unsung Hero of the Week
This week’s Tom Burnett Unsung Hero of the Week goes to Cobber volleyball senior Ashley Beseman. Beezy is the “other” senior on the CC team. Everyone always hears about Jenna Green, Katie Vohnoutka and Amy Sykora but rarely do you see Ashley’s name in the match recap. That all changed on Wednesday when she came up with several huge points against #11 St. Thomas and helped the Cobbers post an emphatic sweep. One of the The Mess’ core philosophies is that “good things happen to good people” and that was never more evident than against the Tommies. Ashley is one of the great student/athletes at Concordia and we are happy to see her get her due from playing so well.
The Mess Fans of the Week
Unfortunately there will be no fans of the week. We did not receive a submission and the pics our photographers took just didn’t scream out “Fan of the Week.
Once again we ask our 10′s of readers to submit Cobber fan pics! Please send your Cobber fan pictures to: cobbersportsinformation@gmail.com. Remember – the winning entry receives a special Cobber prize!
Fresh Mess of the Week – Sister Act!
Since we crowned the Cobber women’s golf team the Queens of the Mess, we thought we would take the time to spotlight the CC women’s soccer tandem of Laura and Marta Prosinski. The freshmen twins have been one of the keys to success for the women’s soccer team and had a hand in the win over St. Mary’s on Saturday. Marta scored the game-winning goal in the first half and the two combined for seven of the team’s 20 shots on the day. Laura and Marta have been a force in the middle of the field all year long and are currently second and third on the team in scoring.
Upcoming Mess Game of the Week
- Women’s Soccer at home vs. Macalester – Sat., Oct. 8 at 1 p.m.
For the second straight weekend there is no home football game so that means The Mess will be on the sidelines of the Cobber fútbol doubleheader against Macalester. While the men’s game should be good, it will be the women’s contest that steals the show. The Cobbers are 2-1-2 in conference play and can’t afford to drop any points at home. Meanwhile, the Scots enter the week 3-0-1 and in a three-way tie for second place in the league standings. Whenever these two teams hook up, it is always a great game.
After further review, that’s it for another edition of the Mess. Since this is unofficially “Be Kind To Referees” Week we ask you to go out and yell something positive about a referee at a game this week! “Hey ref, you’re not blind, you have the best eyes of anyone on the field!”
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