“I got number 23,” the defender says. All of a sudden, I no longer felt the ball, so I quickly run back, wincing in pain. Although he was only nine years old, he had a pretty strong kick that didn't feel good. 

Barnacles, I should have worn shin guards.

The ref shook his head disapprovingly and didn’t blow his whistle. I lunge at the defender, and suddenly I have the ball. If his foul wasn’t called, there is no way he is gonna call my foul, unless he’s stupid. 

TWEEEEEEEEET.  The ref puts his hand straight into the air, straight as can be, and screams,” FREE KICK.”

“Terrible call, ref,” I say to him. 

The ref looks at me with a puzzled look.

 “He kicked me, so I lightly kicked him back. Here, I will even show you what happened.” As I was giving the referee a play-by-play runthrough of what happened, my foot “accidentally” made contact with the stupid ref’s leg. 

 “What color” I hear the referees whisper to each other. 

The referees exchanged evil grins and reached into the bag. It was as shiny as gold, but the card was not quite the color. The referee puts the card high in the air, a very red card.

Five years later, I quickly get dressed in my referee uniform and head downstairs. 

It is my first soccer game that I will be refereeing. My palms are sweaty, my knees felt weak, and my arms are heavy. I slowly put on my size ten soccer cleats and jump into my mom’s car. 

We drove until we saw two fourth-grade teams warming up on a vast Stamford High soccer field. 

The game quickly gets underway; Seven minutes into the game, I made my first call. I wave my flag in an arch to signal offsides and hold it until the referee notices.  

The main referee stops the game, and shoots his arm straight up into the sky, straight as can be, and yells, “free kick.”

“What kind of call was that ref, you stupid ref’?" I heard a kid say. 

“Do you need glasses, ref?” I hear an adult say.

The other team’s coach joined in and said, “That was a terrible call referee.” 

I gasped, I have never had a coach say this to me before.  

Even the parents that woke up early to watch their kids stand there for 40 minutes also started to yell at me. 

They roared things like, “That was not offsides, my little Teddy weddy would never do something like that.” When in fact, their little Teddy weddy would do something like that. 

Standing up for their kid even though they were just sitting there on their lawn chair watching Tik Tok. I know you weren't watching, so I don’t know why you're talking. 

As a result of all this harassment, my head sank, and I slowly reached into my bag for a napkin when I saw a card; a red card

 There is also a yellow card that is more appropriate for this kind of situation, so I quickly grab the yellow card, and I hold it up high in front of the coach. 

Straight as can be.