Hi. I'm Linda. I'm the woman in the yellow shirt with the whistle at your kid's soccer game on Saturday morning, the one you're yelling at. I've been refereeing youth soccer, under-8 through under-14, for six seasons now. I have two kids of my own who play, I was a sideline parent before I was a ref, and I got my badge because our league was so short of referees that games were being called off. I'm not a former pro. I'm a dental hygienist who took a course. There are a lot of us.

I made this page because there are about six things I explain over and over on the sideline, usually to someone who is red in the face, and I thought: what if I wrote them down? So here they are. Read them before Saturday. Your kid will thank you. Actually, your kid won't notice; but I will.

One thing before we start, and I'll say it again at the bottom: the kids are fine. It's the adults. In six years I have never once had a problem with a nine-year-old that a quiet word didn't fix. I cannot say the same about the nine-year-old's father.

This is the rule that gets shouted about most and understood least. It is actually not that hard. Here it is in plain English.

A player is in an offside position if, at the moment a teammate plays the ball to him, he is closer to the other team's goal line than BOTH the ball AND the second-to-last defender. (The goalkeeper is usually the last defender, so in practice that means: closer to the goal than the last outfield defender.)

Now the parts everybody misses:

• It's judged at the moment the ball is kicked, not when your kid receives it. If he was level with the defender when his teammate passed it and then outran the defender to get to the ball, that's not offside. That's called being fast. I know it looks offside from the far sideline. It isn't. Which brings me to...
• You cannot judge offside unless you are level with the play. That's why the assistant referee (the one with the flag) runs up and down the line to stay even with the second-to-last defender. You, in your folding chair at midfield, are looking at it from an angle. Trust the flag.
• Level is not offside. If the attacker is even with the defender, he's onside.
• Being in an offside position is not, by itself, a foul. Your kid can stand in an offside position all day. It's only called if he becomes involved in the play: plays the ball, interferes with a defender, or gains an advantage from being there. A kid standing offside on the far side of the field while the ball is played to somebody else is not offside. (Well, he's in an offside position, but there's no offense.)
• You cannot be offside in your own half of the field.
• You cannot be offside from a throw-in, a goal kick, or a corner kick. Direct from those, no offside. This one surprises people every single week.
• You cannot be offside if the ball was last played to you by a defender. If the other team's kid kicks it to your kid, it doesn't matter where your kid was standing.

The penalty for offside is an indirect free kick for the other team from where the offside player was. It's not a yellow card. It's not "cheating." It's a positioning rule, and kids under 12 get it wrong constantly, because it's hard, and that is fine.

If you've read this far, you now understand offside better than about 80 percent of the people who yell "OFFSIDE!" at me. Congratulations. Please tell the others.

Our league, like a lot of leagues now, plays small-sided games for the youngest kids: U8 is four-on-four on a little field with little goals. This is a good thing, because four-on-four means every kid touches the ball a lot, instead of eleven six-year-olds following the ball around in a clump like a school of fish (although they still do that some). The rules are simpler on purpose. In our league, for U8:

• No offside. None. Don't yell it. Please. There's no offside.
• No goalkeepers. Nobody can use their hands. Yes, that means goals are easy. That's the idea.
• No penalty kicks. Fouls in front of the goal are just free kicks.
• Throw-ins get a do-over. If a kid does the throw-in wrong (foot up, ball not over the head, one hand), I show them how and they try again. We're teaching, not punishing.
• No scores are kept officially. The kids keep score anyway. That's fine. I don't.
• Four short quarters instead of two halves, with substitutions between them, so everyone plays and nobody keels over.
• I am on the field with them, not on the sideline, and half my job is tying shoes and pointing out which goal is theirs. This is the best job I have.

At U10 our league goes to eight-on-eight with goalkeepers and offside comes in. At U12 and U14 it's full eleven-a-side with the full rules. So if your kid is six, relax. You have three years to learn the offside rule. Start now; it's right up there.

"She didn't blow the whistle!" Right. I didn't. Because I didn't need to.

The whistle is required for a kickoff, a penalty kick, to stop play for a foul or an injury, and to restart after I've stopped it. It is not required for a throw-in, goal kick or corner kick, and it isn't required when the ball goes out of bounds if it's obvious. A goal doesn't need a whistle either, although I usually give one for the little kids because they like it. So if the ball rolls out and I point and the kids throw it in without a whistle, nothing has gone wrong. Play on.

The other whistle question: "play to the whistle." Coaches teach this and they're right. If you think there was a foul and you stop, and I didn't call it, you've stopped and the other team hasn't. Keep playing until you hear me. I've called a lot of "advantage" (there was a foul, but the team that got fouled still has the ball and is better off if I let it go) and every time, somebody on the sideline thinks I missed it. I didn't miss it. I decided.

A field guide. I've heard every one of these this month.

Sideline manners, while we're here: Parents on one side, coaches on the other, and nobody behind the goals. Stay a yard back from the line. Cheer for good play, both teams. Don't coach from the sideline; your kid has a coach, and hearing two sets of instructions makes a nine-year-old freeze. Don't talk to the other team's kids. Don't talk to me during play; if you have a real question, ask at halftime, politely, and I'll answer. And when it's over, tell your kid one specific thing they did well, and then get ice cream. That's the whole thing.

I'm serious. We need you. Every fall the league scrambles for referees, and every spring some games get played without one, which means a coach does it, which is worse for everybody. Here's the general picture of how it works around here:

• You take an entry-level referee course, which is a classroom course over a weekend or a few evenings, with a test at the end on the Laws of the Game. It's not hard if you do the reading.
• It costs about $35, which covers the course, the rule book, and your badge (the patch you wear on your shirt). You'll need to buy the shirt, black shorts and socks, a whistle, and a watch. Figure another $50 or so to start.
• Teenagers can do it too; our league takes referees from age 13 or 14 for the little kids' games, and some of our best refs are 15-year-olds who play themselves. It's a decent way for a kid to earn some money on Saturdays and it teaches them more about the game than anything.
• Our league pays referees a small fee per game, more for the older age groups, less for U8 where you're mostly tying shoes. You will not get rich. You will get outdoors.
• You start with U8 and U10 games, with an experienced ref watching, and work up.

E-mail me and I'll tell you who to talk to in our league. If you're somewhere else, ask your league's referee coordinator. Every league has one, and they will be delighted to hear from you. I promise you they will be delighted.

Saturdays at the park district fields, all fall. Come say hi. Nicely.

Games are called off for lightning, always, no exceptions, no matter what the score is or whose grandma drove two hours. Rain we play in. Mud we play in. The kids love mud.

Last thing. I said it at the top. The kids are fine. They play hard, they fall down, they get up, they shake hands at the end, and by the time they're in the car they've forgotten the score and are arguing about snacks. The kids have never once made me want to quit. It's the adults. If the adults on the sideline acted like the kids on the field, every league in the country would have all the referees it needed. Think about that on Saturday. Then cheer for a good play, for either team, and see how it feels.

See you at the field.
Linda

Other sports pages around here that I like: Oakdale Tigers Little League, Over-40 Pickup Basketball (the adults behaving badly on purpose), Rainbow Softball League and Roller Hockey League.