Almost every soccer league has a handful of referees who have verbalized
their desire to see things improve within the ranks. Their complaints and concerns usually fall toward what the new referees are doing or not doing.

Within your handful, several will be fundamentally sound in officiating techniques, positioning, signaling, and knowledge of the Laws of the Game. Reaching out to them to become mentors gets the ball rolling.

• Some will be better than others in communicating.
• Others will excel in building teamwork.
• Some will be better at demonstrating eye contact or completing the tasks mentioned in one of the 4 Golden Opportunities.

Not to worry that you have varying skill levels within your targeted group. It's not a negative thing, it's the way things are no matter where you go, and, that's ok.

As a matter of fact, some will share that they work much better with older kids, or higher level games than those assigned to new referees. Meeting such needs as these are vital to respecting and holding the group together.

A line from a 60's song comes to mind: "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with "...translation.."if you can't be with the one's that need mentoring the most, mentor the one's you're with."

However, think about this axiom: We mentor to our level of competency. This means that some of your mentors will be freelance mentors wherever they take games. They'll make efforts to appropriately mentor to their level of competency. Their focus might not be with the new referees but they'll have their eyes and heart in the right place at the right time, a comforting thought for Referee Coordinators who know how helpful these mentors can be.

Your Assignor can attempt mentor-new referee matchups for regular season games, and, especially for pre-scheduled scrimmage matches. Coaches are made aware of the purpose of the scrimmage games and the mentors are free to delay restarts for a few moments if important teaching opportunities arise.

Scrimmage game formats are also ideal when breaking in new center referees. Here, an experienced center referee-mentor can shadow the newbie during the game, sometimes following and other times leading. At all times, the mentor is authorized to step in as needed to protect players from injury or serious fouls in case the new referee hasn't grasped the seriousness of the moment or doesn't know what to do when it happens.

INNOVATIVE MENTOR - MENTOREE MATCHUPS: One league plans on 'blocking'(saving) a certain number of games at u10rec level for Mentors as the Center Referee, plus, one(1) Assistant Referee slot for newly licensed referees, during the first 4 weeks of the upcoming Fall season. The math guarantees that every newly licensed & relatively new referee will be mentored within that time period.

MENTORS NEED TO BE CURRENT ON signaling and positioning techniques...Some will have received their basic training years ago...but, still manage games at a good level of proficiency. Some have kept current by attending various field clinics, and some haven't.

What this means is that all mentors ought to receive a modified refresher clinic on the basics of Assistant Referee and Center Referee positioning, movement, signaling, communication. We want to be as thorough with our mentor training as we are committed to providing excellent advice for our new referees. A well-intentioned referee who unwittingly teaches out of date mechanics or protocol can be the cause of needless confusion and developmental delay for a new referee hearing conflicting instructions from mentors. So, part of the job description for becoming a mentor includes attending a well run clinic that puts everyone on the same page, singing the same song at the same time.

We want to hear from those who already have or still are putting their Mentoring Program(s) together. There are lots of different mentoring programs & methodologies. It is not as difficult as it may seem to get one started, just a few calculated decisions are needed plus, a built-in resiliency to alter them as you go.

Mentor Candidate Characteristics
We'd like to hear from mentors, Mentoring Program Coordinators, Referee Coordinators, about the qualities that you look for when recruiting or accepting a referee into your Mentoring Program. Outlines of training components and amount of time spent on each will be a good read. We begin with this: mentoring is about support, education, self discipline, differentiating between well-done and let's also work on this. It's about role modeling the ideal way to be a center referee who leads, who teaches, who welcomes into the fold those coming along behind him/her. It's about maximizing time & best use of time at the fields so that free time becomes learning time; discarding much of the standing around that we normally experience where time and learning opportunites are wasted. Talking. Knowing how and when to ask questions. Teaching them how to fish rather than giving them a fish.