HYSA provides referees for intramural games and for travel team games scheduled at home. The referee program is critical to HYSA’s success. The program also provides an opportunity for children to develop as referees.Do you like soccer? Kids who like soccer make the best referees!

For some, it’s their first regular job during the school year. For others, it’s an opportunity to develop leadership skills… taking charge of the game, making quick decisions, instructing younger players on proper techniques and rules.

Learning to referee comes both from formal orientation/training sessions and “learning by doing” with more experienced referees.

Intramurals and Travel Games

Holliston Youth Soccer manages intramural referees and travel referees as separate groups. There is a coordinator (assignor/mentor) for intramural games and one for travel games. Assignment preference is given to Holliston referees, but at times the coordinators may need to utilize referees from other towns.

The intramural referee coordinator will introduce referees to U8 (4v4) and U10 (6v6) games through a series of mentored assignments with experienced referees. Once a new referee is comfortable, her or she will get solo assignments.

To get assignments for travel games, a referee must be a Grade 8 certified and have two years experience. Exceptions may be made by the travel referee coordinator based on ability and soccer experience. The coordinator would do an assessment in this case. Generally speaking, referees are only assigned games where they are two years older than the players. Travel referees are first introduced as assistant referees (ARs) and are offered center assignments based on ability and level of play.

Are you interested in becoming a Referee?

If you are at least 12 years old and want to referee for the upcoming season, you will need to take a training course. There are two levels of training:

1)    If you are 12-13 years old, you will be trained by HYSA to referee intramural games in town (U8 and U10). The training consists of ~1.5 hours of home web based pre-training and 1 hour in-person training. After you complete the training, you will be a referee in training (RIT) and get on the job training with an experienced referee at U8 and U10 games. Contact the intramural referee coordinator if you are interested and qualified for HYSA training. Intramural Referee Coordinator.

2)    If you are 14 years old or older, go to the www.massref.net web site. On the left side of the web page look for certification courses under “Become a Referee” and choose the Grade 8 course that suits your schedule. Once you complete the course, contact both Holliston referee coordinators to let them know you completed your Grade 8 certification course. Referee Coordinators.

Resources

Please find the travel and intramural referee coordinators on the Board of Directors page.
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