Week 4 Fall 2007

I did get a report of an adult male taking 2 little boys up into the woods. One of them was trying to pull away. I reported it to the Safety director and the Security officer. After checking it out, it was a dad taking his 2 sons to see the forgotten cemetery in the woods. The younger one did not really want to go. I do want to thank the parent that brought it to our attention. You never know. It is great to know we have parents that are watching out for not only their kids, but everyone else's too. The County plans to clean out around the cemetery, put up a fence and a few parking spots. The Security officer said there are some headstones from the 1800s in there.

We still have a few coaches that can not or will not pull back when the get 5 goals ahead of the other team. We will keep telling them till they get it. In the mean time we have told the coaches that are getting beat to pull their teams off the field....game over. Maybe it will sink in. For any coach that has to have that blow out, and a perfect season there is a certificate that can be down-load and printed out. It is on the coaches page under pulling back. You can print as many as you feel you need. I know there are times when no matter what you do, your team is on, and the the other team is just not playing. Be creative and find a way. I have seen coaches tell their kids to pass (play keep away), to shoot at the corner flag (buy them a snow-cone if they hit it), or as one coach did have some one stand between the goal and the corner flag, tell the kids to shoot at them. The other team get a goal kick. I have been on both sides so I know and can tell when a coach is pul ling back.

Well, the big item was referees, where have they gone. Our super referee David Lister was sick so he could not do his normal 6 games. A lot of games did not have referees. I do want to thank Mike Horner, Ellen Massey, Damek and Sadie Izo. For covering a lot of games. Mike coaches the U19 team and this is the first Saturday his team has had a home game. Last week they played in Dandridge. If it was not for them a lot more games would not have had referees. I also appreciate all the ones that do come out and do 1 or 2 games each week. If all the referees did that we would have plenty. Bill Mize came out early, he got off work at 9 am, refereed a game and then headed to Athens for his Central HS game. Tell Bill your too busy to do 1 game. Folks tell all the teams if you do not have a referee for your team, get hold of Kerry Patterson or Bill Mize ASAP. They are holding a regional referee class this week at Halls Middle School. We need all the teams to have a referee. If you plan to go to a tournament you MUST have 2 referees. Referees can only be assigned to 1 team in tournament play. The days of a referee being the referee for 7 or 8 teams is over. There will be a lot of teams not going to tournaments.

The Area Referee Administrator David Holt was at the fields. He was doing a referee assessment on a U14 game referee. Hope it all went well. David even stayed around and did a game after doing the assessment. We did have a couple of cards issued by referees this week. A red card was issued in a U12 game and a yellow in another U12 game. I am waiting on the referee report on the red card, but from what the referee told me it was well deserved.

I did have a little Patterson humor this week. I was standing in line to use the Patterson's, a U6 or U8 player was in line next to me. He asked where the one in the center was. We have 6 Patterson, 3, a open space and 3 more. I told him it was full and the company took it to empty it. I should have known my words would come back the haunt me. When I came out, the same little boy was waiting. He told me 'You better call them because this one is full too". I told him I would and he ran off to his game.

The Hyundai Coach kits finally got here. I passed out about 60 of them Saturday. The coaches seemed pleased with them. I have a list of the coached that have not gotten theirs and will send it to the Division Coordinators later. The kits have a dry erase board and pen, cones, ball bag and some player certificates.

I do want to thank the U6 coaches that picked up their goals at the end of the day, and also Mike Horner and crew that collected all the corner flags except for 1 U8 field where the game was still going on. Lastly I want to thank the last U8 team that pickup their corner flags. It is a big help when I am one of the last ones left at the fields. Thank You all.