Dealing with Stress
May 15th, 2006
Saturday night was my first game refereeing the PDL league. This was the first time I refereed a ‘professional’ game. I had no idea what to expect which caused me to be so jittery. Sid (the other assistant referee) and I left Tampa around 3:30 so that we would have plenty of time to get to the game. The game was in Orlando, about two hours away. We were to meet up with the man in the middle ref (Rob Joyner) once we got there.
We pulled into the parking lot and cars filled the parking lot. 400+ people were along the sidelines. The park had a carnival atmosphere. Kids were everywhere and their parents eagerly awaiting the forthcoming matchup between the Carolina Dynamo and the Central Florida Kraze. We walk around and are introduced to both coaches and the referee representative. I’ve never had one of those before. It was wild to have so much attention directed towards us. Rob shows up and it is like old times. That’s good. Something familar to grasp onto in times of high anxiety seems to calm things down. We are joking back and forth and we slip into referee mode. You walk taller and speak with more conviction and purpose when that happens. It is a nice feeling. You can wrap yourself in it like a glove.
Now let me explain something about stress. Not only was this my first PDL match but we were also being assessed by a National Assessor as that Rob is trying to move up. In addition, we had a U.S. Fifa Referee on the sidelines watching us. Now I am Very Nervous. The cool thing is, I like stress. It makes me more aware of my environment. It gives me an extra boost to make the runs and perform at that high level. Once I feel like I am in the groove the stress flows away and I have a singular purpose at that time. Be The Best Referee I Can. I like having only one thing to concentrate on. It gives me joy.
Usually it is like this. Every so often things go a little wrong and the stress doesn’t drop away. I find it is a little thing during the game that I choose to ignore that comes back to cause major problems during the match. A push, a shove, a slight kick. And before you know it I have to do everything I know to pull the game back from castastrophe because I wasn’t paying attention.
Life is like that. I stop paying attention to things around me for the slightest minute and things can go bad while I am driving, saling, and in my relationships; my friends, my family, and my future wife. It was a hard lesson to learn. I hope I don’t fail at it.