Just want to again thanks the folks for putting on this ref clinic for our younger kids. Having said that I have been thinking of some ideas and would like your feedback.....

In order to grow our sport is there a way that we can grow our young officials? Here are some of my ideas....

1. Make these clinics a regular occurance at various times and locations around the state (similar to Bronze clinics). It seems that this could be a program that is ran and controlled our official representatives on the corporate board and on the kids executive board.

2. At these clinics we could have rules books to give the students. We could have 4-6 computers there so they could register and then we could have another meeting a couple of weeks later to take the test.

3. We could develop a mentorship program so that our experienced refs could work with our younger refs and pass on their wisdom and experience. Example: If I am hosting a tournament that needs 12 refs then I would hire 1 head ref with 1-2 experienced refs that would not actually ref during the tournament but they would mentor the younger refs (refs with less than 3 years of experience). Personally I would then hire 8-10 young refs (especially for a Novice tourney).

The mentors would provide on site feedback to the young officials and they would provide them formal feedback on a standardized form. Our soccer association does that with young soccer refs and it is a wonderful program. They have a pool of 30-40 youth referees (High school age students) because of this mentorship program.

I also think we could check into the state possibly rewarding tournaments that implement the ref mentorship program by paying at least half for the mentor fees.

These are just some of my thoughts over the past couple of weeks. Would appreciate any feedback or other ideas.

This clinic was a great opportunity for our high schoolers and it is a great way to continue to grow our sport and keep kids active in it as they grow.

Shawn Budke