Referee: The Thankless Job

So tonight I came to a realization. Referees have a thankless job. Earth-shattering, I know.

When it comes to playing on the field, I'll admit that I'm not nearly as polite or as nice as I hope to be in real life. I use playing on the field as my one area where I can actually stop being nice because I can. Just stop being nice. I'll use my body to block a player and not so gently push them out of the way and when a player pulls my jersey I'll raise my voice to let the ref know what just happened. All niceness aside, I play the game to play the game, not to score nice points with anyone except my teammates.

And then there's referee, responsible for it all. If even a seemingly nice person in the outside world steps on a field and becomes a not-nice person - who does the referee ever have on his/her side?

While you shake hands with the ref and the other team with a cordial, "good game," as soon as you step off the field, as was the case tonight, so begins bickering. The calls the ref made or didn't make, how that impacted the game, and we could go on and on and on. I'm not sure I've ever been a part of a game where after the time ends players, coaches, spectators leave the field and say, "that ref, he/she really called a great game." Likely one in a million that those words have ever been put together in a sentence.

Thanks to those referees of the world. Maybe after the Superbowl we can all stop to think about what a wonderful game the referee called. It might not happen, but next time I play I'll do my best to respect the ref and show it through actions and words.