Soccer Referee Mentoring Program

Mission
Scrimmage Games Essential
In-The-Game Mentors
Power of Compliments
Getting Started
To Learn It, Teach It!
Guidebook Speeds Progress
About Tommy O'Brien
Free Subscribe
Contact Us

Mentors are to new referees as coaches are to players .
Once new referees leave their licensing class, mentors are the ongoing front line for fulfilling the training and development objectives of local Referee Coordinators. From theory to practice, caring mentors explain and demonstrate the how's and why's of soccer officiating to our newly licensed referees, whose parents are responding with exceptional support and participation. There are many approaches to mentoring, ours is primarily what we call in-the-game mentoring, where assigned mentors, usually as the Center Referee, officiate games with newly licensed referees.

In-the-game mentoring embodies the best of all teamwork concepts while simultaneously role modeling desirable characteristics of an ideal Center Referee. Whether your involvement is with USSF, AYSO, ODP, PAL, USL, adult or premier level leagues and regardless of the status of your referee grade, if you have a solid/current foundation in the fundamentals of soccer officiating and want to be a part of the delivery system for improvement in your local league, your heart will find no better way to bring about change than by being a mentor. A quick phone call could put you "in-the-game" in the very rewarding capacity of being a leader and teacher of the art of officiating.

Today's mentors are more ready to lead, to teach, and role model than ever before.

Today's new referees are more ready to learn than ever before.

One newly licensed referee put it this way, " Hey, call it what you like, transitioning, morphing, whatever, I want to know what to do."

Mentors can be deployed in several ways, as developed on the In-The-Game-Mentors page:

As Center Referee for the game, training newly licensed Assistant Referees as well as relatively new Assistant Referees(one or two seasons of experience)in regular season or scrimmage games

As AR1, Mentor from the touchlines working with new Assistant Referees or new Center Referees

Center / Mentor out on field with a new Center Referee...in scrimmage games; with possible assistance from another Mentor who works with new AR's

Today's soccer referee administrators, referee coordinators, assignors, mentoring program coordinators are ablaze with energy. Much of which stems from gratifying results associated with mentoring newly licensed referees. It makes eminent sense to pool the best local resources available to teach those who need to learn the most the quickest and who demonstrate the strongest desire to learn.

It's Your Call

A How To booklet that is the perfect primer for new referees and mentors. A Guidebook with 100's of tips that maximize best use of time at the fields to become a better referee

Companion Resource For New Soccer Referees & Mentors

Companion Resource For New Soccer Referees & Mentors

Read All About It... Tell Us Your Story

Automatic Mentoring?
Setting Mentoring Goals getting Easier
In the first 4 weeks of ' 07 Fall season, one league's USSF newly licensed refs will be mentored at least 4 times, In-the-game , as AR2. The Center Referee is their Mentor. Everyone gets better as officials. Coaches are glad to see referees improving. Parents feel that their kids are being officiated better / safer...It's a 'win - win' for sure.
League Assignor uses creative ' blocking ' of AR2 and Center positions to bring about intended 'automatic ' referee hands-on training.

AR1, in these same games(above) fall to Relatively New Referees, 1-3 yrs experience as AR's; they'll be mentored at least two times in the same four weeks.

New Zealand website ... From local parks to FIFA; council grounds to great stadiums
Brian Precious and Bruce Grimshaw began refereeing around 30 and both reached FIFA level and FIFA Tournaments
Lynn Fox began because her son's team needed a referee. Eight years later she was refereeing at the 2000 Sydney Olympics
Paul Smith decided to concentrate as an assistant referee in 1996. Six years later he was officiating at the 2002 Korea/Japan World Cup

The same coach who organized two days of scrimmage games for a u8-10rec Jamboree in 2006, is now planning a Second Jamboree for Fall 2007 for older players, u14-15rec.. with the dual purpose of Referee Training via the league's team of Mentors.

Some leagues are finding ways to set up a scrimmage game within the licensing class schedule on a night not dedicated to classroom teaching, usually in the latter part of the class after Laws 5,6,11 and 13-17 have been covered.
Creative alliances between Referee Coordinators and the area Director of Instruction bring this about.
Such leagues deploy their mentors to coach students during the game. Students are divided into two groups, actively rotated into the game as AR1, AR2. Students can be placed ' two deep' ( one behind the other )where both follow the instructions of the Mentor who moves up and down the field with them. Mentors rotate the 2nd student into front position, add a new 2nd AR from the pool of others waiting to participate.

A second Mentor is assigned to work with those waiting to go into the game: all are watching how fellow students are being coached at the touchline.
Center Referee slot is filled by local talent or the licensing class Instructor.

Students who participated return to class with noticeably higher levels of energy & participation when reviewing the challenging job of the Assistant Referee.

Scrimmage Games Essential	In-The-Game Mentors	Power of Compliments
Officiating scrimmage games is for new referees as practice is for players, as oxygen is to breathing. Players and coaches practice - Why not the same thing for new soccer referees? Let's end hit or miss training for new referees, put stability and predictability into their training and development. Supervised scrimmage games by qualified soccer referee mentors creates the perfect laboratory in which theory is fused into the art of officiating	99% of in-the-game mentoring where the Mentor is the Center Referee, and the Assistant Referees are new and/or relatively new referees, occurs outside of the game itself. We consider the 30 minute period before kickoff, the half time break and brief end of game conversations all to be part of that game. These are precious opportunities to be helpful...and we don't want to waste them.	Differentiating between what is going well, fairly well, or, not so well is a critical self evaluation skill. When a mentor leads with a compliment on what new referees are doing well, the new referee can use that as a benchmark to learn what other skills he/she ought to be working on. Mentors play a pivotal role in bolstering their learning curve when they lead with the compliment.
Getting Started	To Learn It, Teach It!	Guidebook Speeds Progress
Almost every soccer league has a handful of referees who have verbalized their desire to see things improve within the ranks. Their complaints or concerns usually fall toward what the new referees are doing or not doing.	Now we are getting to the heart of things: consistency and accuracy in what we teach. The challenge is to be on fire with accuracy with what we teach. When you teach something you learn it! Ever wonder how teachers got to be so smart in their subject areas? There ya go!	"It's Your Call" picks up where licensing classes end, as a companion resource to existing documents like Laws of the Game, Guide to Procedures, Advice, Laws of the Game Made Easy.
About Tommy O'Brien	Subscribe	Contact Us
In the early 60's I was lucky to go to college with a dozen or so guys from Canada, who readily shared what they knew on how to play hockey and soccer with a passion.	Tommy will alert subscribers of website updates via email. Look for updates in *Read All About It ...* box above	Tommy O'Brien 351 E. Hedding St, San Jose, CA 95112 www.SoccerRefereeMentors.com 408-298-2824