Personal Narrative: Growing Up With Soccer

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I have grown up with soccer, I played all thru out my youth on special teams and played in high school as well. I even continued my love for the sport and became a referee. With many years of experience on the field, I have put expectancy violations theory to work many of times in trying to predict moves and seeing the outcomes from these moves. With 25 years combined experience both as player and referee I felt as though I had a pretty good handle on what to expect and how to handle situations that are unexpected. In a regional final though I found no matter the years of experience you can always be thrown for a loop. It was the middle of June and I was refereeing the final in the regional high school state finals for boys fifteen to eighteen. …show more content…

As I predicted he kicked the ball to the goalie who I predicted would kick the ball down field; this is not what happened though. The goalie picked up the ball with his hands, throwing me, my assistant referees and the defender’s team all for a spin. Since everyone had predicted the goalie would kick it down field practically everyone was already on the other end of the field. At this point my assistant referee raised this flag and I blew my whistle for an infraction, this unexpected move was both stressful and distressing at the same time. It was first distressing to think that boys on this level do not know the basic concepts and rules of the game. Mostly the situation was stressful, it was stressful because the move was so unexpected. Around 300 fans were staring and screaming at me to make sure the call was fair meanwhile the attacking team is rushing to set up their free kick in the same moments. Since I was the center referee it was my job to make sure I was at the kick to make sure it was properly set up; mind you I am behind the attacking players a significant distance and am trying to catch up to the area of where the free kick will happen. All this happening simultaneously and trying to analyze everything is very stressful and a little

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