previous entry: Two games into high school, and I've already pulled out a red next entry: Great game, lousy coach
I did my first JV game ever on Friday. The game itself, while fun to watch, really isn't worth writing about a whole lot. I pulled out one yellow card in the second half for persistent infringement, which I should have did ten minutes earlier, but that was it. We ran a duel, and I was running my tuchus off trying to do it properly (which means going into the field and past the center line), while the other guy pretty much ran it like an AR in a three-man crew. What he did is typical, partially beacuse there's little training in the two-man crew (for all it's use, which is increasing because of lack of funds for three refs), but he also said at half-time that he didn't want me to come up so far. Considering I was able to get back into position as needed (again, this is not like the DSC where the AR is always supposed to be in position, the Dual is a giant kludge). I was more in it the second half, because the game turned pretty one-sided. There actually was a single training session on the Dual this year, but I was unable to make it (so I've resigned myself to reading about it a whole lot), but while, knowing the instructiors, it was probably very well done, just one won't help the 95% of the rest of us who couldn't make it because of other appointments (like myself) or the distance was too far away to make it feasable.
Now, as for why it was my first ever JV game. Most of the time, high schools want you to do their JV games before you move up to varsity - partially because the game, at least here, is much more physical than what you get in club soccer. This is partially because there's a much wider range of skill levels, and the lower you are, the quicker you are to go physical to counter the skill deficit (I certainly do!), and also because there's a much larger age difference (up to four years) than what you normally get in club soccer (where you might, in very rare circumstances, see someone play up a year or two, but not a good chuck of the team). So why? Mostly, because I was stupid. One of the referee groups was so short-handed they were taking people without experience, and my not knowing any better (although I had done club that summer) jumped in, swam with the sharks, and got bitten several times (last year, too). Unless you got a good mentor, don't do what I did.
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