Central Oregon Soccer Officials Association Main Page

N E W S & I N F O R M A T I O N

Updating Your Email – This past season, we pretty much did everything via email. Other than paychecks, we didn’t mail anything out as an Association. Please make me (salari@oregontrail.net) or Bob Foster (bfoster@bendcable.com) aware of any changes in your email address. We won’t be able to reach you in the future, if your email address is not current. Please remember that it is your responsibility to keep your contact information current.

Gregory Scott Rivers Sportsmanship Scholarship – The winner of this year’s $500 Sportsmanship Scholarship, based on voting by our local High School Officials is Christopher Miller from Bend High School. Chris or “Chipper” and Bend High both had a great season this past year. Chipper consistently maintained respect for his teammates and opponents throughout the season. He also was kind and respectful to the Officials. He was a leader for the Bend High team, particularly when it came to displaying good sportsmanship.

Our Website – If you haven’t done so in a while, please take some time to look through our website (www.cosoa.org). John Aubry has done a wonderful job maintaining and updating our website. You should be able to find the latest copy of the Newsletter as well as some great general soccer stuff on the website. Please thank John the next time you run into him for all his good work on the website. If you have friends or people interested in becoming soccer officials, please refer them to our website for additional information.

Paychecks – Claudio and Dick have completed the end of the year payroll for the High School, included the mileage incurred during the season and have finished off the last paychecks of the season. We will be handing out end of the year paychecks at our Pizza Party next week. Whoever doesn’t make it to the Pizza Party … will end up paying for the pizza with their unclaimed check . Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that? We’ll mail the checks to those who are unable to attend the Pizza Party.

Presidential Reflections on the High School Season:

For me personally, the greatest story of our High School Officiating season had to be having John Aubry back on the pitch. The first time I saw John back on the sideline of a game this season, I felt a knot in my throat. When I saw how fast and hard he ran the line … how he was in the perfect position to make every call at his end and how he made the High School kids look slow … the knot in my throat was replaced by a smile on my face. John has been a tremendous contributor to our Association for many years … and we missed him last season as he battled with Hodgkins Lymphoma. He fought for his life last year … something most of us have never had to endure through … and this year he made a 100% complete return to his life and activities. You would never know by looking at his speed and agility on the sideline what he had to endure last year. You would never know by listening to him what he went through last year … the only thing he ever really says about his life last year is, “I spent a lot of time looking up at the ceiling.” Needless to say, for me personally, John Aubry’s recovery and comeback from cancer was the brightest highlight of our season together as Officials.

A few Thank You’s:

I think a lot of folks need to be recognized for the successful completion of this past High School season. I hope I’m not leaving anybody out, but here’s the list I had in my head (in not particular order):

Our ‘new’ Referees: Chris Douglass, Jeff Lichtenberg, Michael Kolb and Chad Rust. These guys spent their first season with our group … and I would have to say that they were a huge help to our tired legs. They refereed a ton of games and consistently improved their skills and mechanics throughout the season. We couldn’t have covered the games that we did, without their help and they are as promising a set of new referees as we have had in many. They each had outstanding seasons as first year officials and I look forward to working with all of them in the future.

Old ‘old’ Referees: OK … you guys know you aren’t really ‘old’ (except for Erickson ) but all the returning veterans who probably worked more games than they wanted to, in order to help cover all the games. As usual you guys did an outstanding job. I know that I speak for Claudio when I say that I appreciate all your hard work and all the games that you covered. It was a lot of fun working with each different crew and it is personally rewarding for me to be a part of an Association with so many fine Officials.

Everybody who made it to the meetings: I want to thank all the folks who gave up some of their evening time with their families to attend our meetings. I thought we had productive & worthwhile meetings … and I appreciate the attendance at the meetings.

Ric Secor & John Aubry: I can’t thank Ric & John enough for the great training presentations which they put together for the group. The training videos were to the point, relevant and fun to watch. I would have to say that they made each of us better referees.

Claudio Muggia: Aside from excessive moaning and groaning to the group about not rejecting games , Claudio had one of the best seasons as Commissioner as I have seen in our past. For a majority of the season, games were assigned a couple of weeks in advance and we didn’t have to do any assigning of games at our meetings. He fought on our behalf with the Athletic Directors to move some games around and do some back to back games to accommodate our schedules. He billed the High Schools before the season started and we had money in our account to pay our Officials through the season … instead of having to wait until the end of the season to pay everybody.

Dick Robertson: Dick combined with Claudio to make sure all of you were paid throughout the season for your hard work. I wish I also knew the name of Dick’s wife … because she helped Dick with some of these tasks, but needless to say … they took a lot of frustration out of our season for the group, by making sure the folks were paid regularly.

T R A I N I N G

With the end of the outdoor soccer season upon us … I wanted to reflect on some of the things that I learned this past season:

From Refereeing with Tom Brown … I learned the true value of showing up at least 30 minutes early to games, talking about the game and our respective responsibilities as Officials and relaying proper information to our fellow referees. All too often, we show up at the field to collect rosters and do equipment check … but after refereeing some games with Tom this season, I learned how much more could be accomplished before the game and its value throughout the game.

From Claudio Muggia … I am still learning the dangers involved when players slide with their cleats up. This is one of the most dangerous plays in soccer and also one of the most commonly missed calls at the High School level. It doesn’t really make a difference when a player claims that he “got all ball” … what matters is the safety of the players and the dangers involved when players come at each other with their cleats up. It’s such a fast play and sometimes it happens at an angle which makes it difficult to see; but the key is to anticipate its occurrence and let the players know that you see it.

From our Training Videos … I learned the importance of not losing your cool with the players and coaches. It’s one thing when they lose their cool and say or do something unprofessional … it’s totally another thing when we as Officials lose our cool and respond back in a disrespectful way. To become better Officials, we need to hear the players out and not shut them off in a way that makes them feel take matters into their own hands.

There’s lots of other things that I picked up from everybody else … but I didn’t want to bore everybody with too long a Training section .