Five days ago I received an email from Linda Velie, whom I have known since the eighties. Notes from long-time friends are always welcome. It's the surprise first of all, I suppose, but after the surprise come memories--of occasions shared, of pleasant times recalled, and once-in-a-while, a reminder of lessons learned. Like the one I absorbed from a July, 1980 NASL game in Seattle, which Linda reminded me about in the email. It was the day I encountered an explosion in the state of Washington, and a coach nicknamed "Gladys": Alan Hinton.
The eruption of Mount St. Helens, May 18, 1980.
The game was Seattle versus Los Angeles on July 6 in the Kingdome, less than two months after the explosion of Mount St. Helens, which I had witnessed the morning after refereeing San Diego at Seattle on May 17. The geologist in me was fascinated by what I saw from the air as I was returning to Dallas, but I had not expected two disasters in less than two months . . .
All went well for the first seven or eight minutes, and then I made a terrible mistake, which cost me my credibility for the remainder of the game, and caused a second disaster in Washington. It wasn't exactly volcanic, but it was an eruption of passion, violence and--for me--embarrassment.
Play was going down the right wing, and as was the practice in those days, I was running the right diagonal in the first half. From the inside-right position (or channel as they call it now) the ball was played out to the wing, and the player of the ball then cut inside to his left to collect a return pass. By this time in my career, I was well aware that in these and similar situations, the runner is more important than the ball, and the referee should always keep on eye on where he goes and what happens to him. But on this occasion . . .
I took my eye off him and watched the ball go out to the wing, just as a defender off to my left, and out of my peripheral vision, pulled down the other forward as he went past, in the penalty-area. Shouts from players and the roar from almost 30,000 spectators told me something had happened (and that I had missed it), but with no signal from a linesman, I had no reason to blow the whistle. Play was still continuing.
Moments later I blew for a foul, and received the first comments of the night. I issued a caution for the colorful language, and then the Seattle coach began shouting at me from the bench. I ran over, where in a long outburst, Alan Hinton told me (among other things) that I had missed an off-the-ball incident which injured one of his players, and also that I had missed the obvious penalty.
I wasn't able to stem the flow of dissent I was experiencing, so I sent the coach off. At first he told me he wasn't going, but with encouragement from security and the roars from the crowd, he walked to the stands. The crowd parted like the biblical Red Sea, and offered him a seat. He sat there for a minute or two, but his good sense eventually prevailed, and he went to the locker-room.
The game was ruined. Players would not believe any decision I made. The baying of the crowd encouraged the worst instincts of players from both teams, and by half-time the score was 2-1 for Seattle, two cautions for Seattle, one L.A. defender sent off for throwing a ball at me (accurately), both coaches sent to the locker-room (Rinus Michels of L.A. for coming onto the field to calm his team's uproar when I awarded the second of two legitimate penalty-kicks for Seattle in the space of four minutes), and one L.A. defender stretchered off after being belted in the head by an opponent in front of a linesman, who saw nothing.
When it was all over, Seattle had won 4-1, three more players from L.A. were in the book, and one more from the home team. What a mess, and all because I had missed a penalty-kick call early in the game! Or was that the real reason?
Keith Walker, the Director of Officials for the league flew into Dallas with the tape some days later, and he, Ed Bellion and I sat down in front of a monitor and watched the whole disaster again, with me trying to explain what happened, where it had gone wrong, and more importantly: Why? How could a referee in his tenth season in the league allow a game to deteriorate into chaos?
It was my responsibility to figure it, and figure it out I did. It was a lesson I never forgot, and I still have the tape of the game. It all came down to hubris, the disease of over-confidence. For the week before, I had travelled down into Central America to referee my first Class A international, a World Cup elimination match between Panama and Guatemala.
The game had gone very well; Guatemala won 2-0, I issued two cautions and there were no problems for me or my two linesmen, David Socha and Angelo Bratsis. I came home full of satisfaction that my international career was starting, and full of confidence that I knew what I was doing. A professional league game in Seattle the following weekend was going to be merely routine.
How wrong I was! I came to understand that when I stepped out onto the turf in Seattle's Kingdome, I was savoring my success of the week before, more than focussing on the match I was about to referee. Hubris ruined my day, and a match for two teams and thirty thousand fans. The old cliche resonates: You are only as good as your next game.
Next: The sequel
Over confidence has the potential to ruin pro careers. I'm always mindful of (good) advice, as well as my mentor's words, ex-Fifa ref Ian McLeod:
"You are only as good as your next whistle." ;-)
Posted by: Charl Theron (WineCape) | April 03, 2010 at 09:06 AM
The 'disease of overconfidence' is in keeping with evolutionary game theory - http://bit.ly/pQR4g6, according to a study published in Nature magazine of Sep 2011.
In practical terms on a footy pitch, overconfidence can be strategically useful when[ever] the potential for the prize - viz., successful start of officiating-career - is larger than the costs and risk of failure, as in a routine league game.
And "if the cost of conflict or competition is high, and all for a fairly worthless prize — you're much better off being cautious."
Looks like the trait of overconfidence is here to stay, as the researchers proclaim.
Posted by: Sandip Vyas | September 21, 2011 at 02:22 PM