The View from the Middle of the Field
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Episode Summary
Todd Merkow sits down with Joel Votaw — Arizona Soccer Association State Referee Administrator, veteran soccer referee with experience at every level of the game, sports parent of three, and a man who has spent the last 14 years watching youth sports from the one vantage point most parents never consider: the middle of the field. Joel grew up in Southern California as a multi-sport kid — swimming, water polo, soccer, skateboarding, the full SoCal menu — before life got busy, he got married young, and sports faded out. He came back to refereeing when his oldest son was 12, partly to make some extra money, mostly to find a way to spend more time around the game his family had fallen into. He never left.
The conversation opens with Joel's own sports parent journey — three kids, two boys and a girl, all soccer players, all referees. His oldest son played D1 before transferring to D2. His middle son played through high school and stopped. His daughter is a junior now, navigating ECNL and the college recruiting landscape at full speed. Joel is honest about the ways he and his wife fell into the same traps most soccer families do: specializing early, chasing the college pathway, riding the emotional wave of tryout season every April and May. He describes tryout stress as something that eventually broke him — he handed it off to his wife and stepped away from that part of the process entirely. He's not proud of it, but he's honest about it.
The heart of the episode is the referee's perspective on sideline behavior, and Joel brings receipts. In Arizona alone, there are approximately 2,300 registered referees. Over 1,100 of them are 17 years old or younger. The majority are 13, 14, and 15 — kids doing their first job, earning decent money for their age group, and getting verbally berated by adults on a regular basis. The state loses approximately 40% of its referees year over year. Joel is careful not to pin all of that on abuse — life happens, kids move on — but he's direct about the damage: referees who get abused before they become proficient never get the chance to become good. The nine-year-old who has a rough referee this season will have a much better referee in three years, if that kid is still in it. The abuse is one of the reasons they're not.
Why should we need to train a kid how to not be abused by an adult? It seems like maybe it should go the other way.
Joel draws a careful line between passion and abuse. An outburst — "that's a penalty, ref!" — is part of the game. He gets it. What crosses the line is when that outburst becomes a sustained campaign: the same parent, the same call, 15 minutes of personal attacks that don't stop. He's equally honest about the gray area: the line is thick, it moves depending on the referee, and what gets ignored in one game gets a yellow card in another. He has empathy for the frustration that creates. He doesn't have a clean answer for it.
We hear you. We know we're trying to ignore you, but know that we hear you. And for days, if not hours, after the match, those comments are in our brains.
One of the most striking moments in the episode is Joel's description of what referees carry home. They hear everything on the sideline. They try to ignore it. They don't. The comments — the personal ones, the mean ones, even the quick outbursts — stay in their heads for hours, sometimes days. He asks parents to imagine sitting next to the referee's parent on the sideline. Would you say those same things knowing that kid's mom was right there? He hopes not. He's not sure.
Imagine the referee's parent is sitting right next to you. Would you say those same things knowing that kid's mom was right there?
The episode closes with a rapid-fire round, a discussion of female referees (23.9% in Arizona, with a goal of 30-33%), and Joel's vision for culture change: not a program, not a policy, but an army of cool people who decide that being nice is the move. He's posted his cell phone number publicly. He wants to hear from parents. He wants to be approachable. He wants the culture to shift from the inside out, and he knows he can't do it alone.
Being valiant means being loyal to who I am as a person — and if I choose to be a good person and help those around me, it means doing that no matter what the circumstances are.
Top 5 Takeaways
Over half of Arizona's referees are minors. This is not an abstraction. When you are on the sideline of a youth soccer game, the person in the middle of the field is, in all likelihood, a 13, 14, or 15-year-old kid doing their first job. They are not a professional. They are not a trained conflict mediator. They are a child who signed up to referee because they love the game and the money is decent. The adult screaming at them from the sideline is not teaching them a lesson. They are traumatizing a kid. That is the accurate description of what is happening.
The 40% annual attrition rate is a system failure, not a personal choice. Arizona loses roughly 40% of its referees every year. Joel is careful not to attribute all of that to abuse — life happens, kids age out, adults get busy. But the pipeline problem is real: referees who get abused before they become proficient never get the chance to become good. The nine-year-old who has a rough referee this season will have a much better referee in three years, if that kid stays in it. The abuse is one of the reasons they don't. Every parent who berates a young referee is, in a very direct sense, making the games worse for their own child.
Passion is not the problem. Sustained personal attacks are. Joel draws a clear line: an outburst is part of the game. He gets it. What crosses into abuse is when the outburst becomes a campaign — the same parent, the same call, 15 minutes of personal commentary that doesn't stop. The gray area is real and he acknowledges it honestly: the line moves depending on the referee, and what gets ignored in one game gets a yellow card in another. That inconsistency is frustrating. It's also not a license to keep going.
Referees don't leave the game at the field. This is the part of the episode that lands hardest. Joel describes what it's like to hear the sideline as a referee — trying to tune it out, knowing you can't, carrying the comments home for hours or days. He asks parents to run a simple thought experiment: imagine the referee's parent is sitting right next to you on the sideline. Would you say those same things? He hopes not. The answer to that question tells you everything you need to know about whether what you're saying is okay.
The coach sets the temperature. Joel confirms what most experienced soccer parents already sense: when a coach is questioning every call, arguing with officials, and performing for the sideline, the parents pick up on it. The energy reverberates. It gets louder. The kids pick up on it too. A coach who manages the game with composure — adapting at halftime, keeping the focus on the players — creates a completely different environment than one who treats every call as a referendum on their authority. Parents should watch how a coach interacts with officials before they sign their kid up. It tells you a lot about what the season is going to feel like.
Female referees are at 23.9% in Arizona. The goal is 30-33%. The player gender split is roughly equal. The referee gender split is not. Joel's organization has a dedicated director of referee development for women's initiatives, and they are actively trying to close the gap — but they haven't cracked the nut of why female players aren't converting to female referees at the same rate male players are. If you know a female player who might be interested, the job works around practice and game schedules, the pay is good for a teenager, and the state needs them.
Being nice is the strategy. Joel's vision for culture change is not a program or a policy. It's an identity: the cool kids are the ones who are nice. He wants to build an army of level-headed parents who decide that treating referees — especially young ones — with basic human decency is the move. He's posted his cell phone number publicly. He wants feedback. He wants to be approachable. He wants the culture to shift from the inside out. He can't do it alone, and he knows it. The parents listening to this episode are the ones he's counting on.
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