This Sunday November 28, 2010 the PAL Seahawks Pee Wees will be playing in Regional Championships against the East Bay Wildcats. The winner will head to Orlando, Florida the following week for the Pop Warner National Championship. If the Seahawks win, it will be the first time in our 50 year history a team has gone to Nationals! Come out and support the Pee Wees at Sequoia High School in Redwood City at 11:00 AM Sunday.
PAL Seahawks alumni Chris Blohm will be the starting Tight End for Yale at this weekend’s Harvard-Yale game in Boston. The game will be broadcast on Versus at 9:00 AM Saturday. Look out for #89!!
PAL referee Bob Pizzi says being a Zen Buddhist helps him stay alert and clear on the field.
Bob Pizzi hasn’t scored a goal all year, won’t do a header, and backs off whenever the ball comes near — but he holds the most important position on the soccer field.
Pizzi is one of a small group of longtime, seasoned referees, and his role on the soccer field is indispensable. Unfortunately, despite their importance to the game, soccer referees are greatly underappreciated and in short supply.
“There’s never enough,” says Joanna Doyle of PAL. Currently there are 119 referees on file. Doyle says that number should be closer to 150 if PAL is to make it through the spring season without a hitch.
What’s more, there’s an acute shortage of older, more experienced referees. Currently, some 75 percent of refs are 18 and under. Among the young referees, particularly those under 16, turnover is especially high.
“Reffing is not for everyone,” says Rich Fern, Referee Coordinator for District 1, which encompasses San Francisco. “You have to have some free time and really love the game of soccer.”
Fern would like to see more young people sign up as referees. For kids, it can be challenging but also rewarding. It also can help therm improve their own soccer game and give them some extra spending money to boot.
SOCCER TRAINING
So what does it take to become a soccer referee in San Francisco?
The job requires a referee license — either a Grade 9 or Grade 8 license to start. PAL offers Grade 9 referee clinics, usually just before the spring season, in February or March. These are open to everyone from age 12 up. The cost is $50.
The easier Grade 9 license involves six hours of classroom training, a written test of 50 questions, and on-the-field training. Referees with a Grade 9 license can only ref at recreational soccer.
The Grade 8 license involves 18 hours of classroom training, a written test of 100 questions (you have to score 75 percent or above), and on-the-field training.
Pay for referees has gone up a little in recent years. Refs today get paid between $15 and $30 per game. Fern think the shaky California economy may spur more people to sign up.
THE BUDDHIST REFEREE
Pizzi, 62, never played soccer himself as a kid. But after coaching his daughter Nikki’s middle-school soccer team, he took the next logical step and became a referee.
He went for his referee license as a way of helping his daughter’s team nab a spot at competitive tournaments. He had heard that teams that can provide referees gain a bit of an edge for those coveted tournament spots. (The referees in question would not ref their sponsoring team’s games.)
He started with a Grade 9 license and later upgraded to Grade 8.
Pizzi says was fascinated by the referee’s role, and quickly found the job to be fun and challenging.
Today his daughter is 20 and no longer playing soccer with her club team. But Pizzi is still on the soccer field most weekends in the fall and spring — and winter, when the Catholic high schools play. He also refs at a few summer tournaments.
“I really love it,” he says. “There’s not a downside at all to it. It’s really good for character building.”
He says he usually refs three to four games a week, including some mid-week high school games, working around his UCSF job where he manages the university computer system.
Pizzi is unusual in that he is a practicing Zen Buddhist. He says being a Buddhist helps him to be a better referee.
“It makes you be mindful and attentive,” he says. “You have to assess and see things clearly.”
A referee “needs to bring sanity to the chaos …You have to take a stand and you have to administer justice,” he adds. “If you don’t administer justice, they (the kids) won’t administer justice.”
Referees who routinely make bad calls create a situation where players are impatient and upset. The play may get out of balance, or kids may retaliate against rough opponents.
“Kids will only take it for so long,” he says. Sooner or later, consciously or unconsciously, they signal to the referee that he or she needs to starting making better calls.
ROWDY CROWDS
A big problem in youth soccer these days is the behavior of spectators on the sidelines. Every ref has had to deal with parents who are loud and abusive. While Pizzi says he can handle most rowdy crowds, not all referees are so thick-skinned. Parent criticism is almost always out of line.
“Most parents don’t know anything about the game and they act as if they do,” Pizzi says. “Unless you’re standing on my shoulder you don’t have any right to say anything …
He says spectators don’t always appreciate how complex the job of soccer referee is.
“When you’ve got to look at the whole field, and at both teams at the same, a lot of stuff is happening.”
Bob Pizzi’s suggestions for beginner referees:
• Don’t start out issuing yellow or red cards; give kids a warning first. Otherwise, you have no place to go if the play gets really rough. A yellow or red card should be reserved for repeated and/or flagrant abuses on the field.
• Explain to the coaches and players how tough you are likely to be on the field. If you are going to be lax and not call a lot of fouls, let them know ahead of time.
• Be clear with players. They should know what your call is, and have no doubt what happened to warrant that call.
• Go over the law book every season to stay fresh.
• Don’t be afraid to make a judgment. That’s your job.
• Be polite to parents, but if you need to rein them in, the proper procedure is to talk to the coach.
Bob Pizzi’s suggestions for parents:
• Treat every game day like Silent Saturday. It’s OK to cheer, but not OK to be loud and abusive. Remember, kids are easily embarrassed by screaming parents on the sidelines.
• Unless you’re standing on the ref’s shoulder and see exactly what he or she sees, it’s wrong to second-guess a ref’s calls. Assume the ref saw something you didn’t, and let it go.
• Sometimes a call goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t. Things have a way of evening out over time. Don’t gripe about one bad call; the next one could be to your advantage.
• Be especially kind to young referees. They are sensitive to criticism, and many quit because of repeated abuse. Everyone makes mistakes. Young refs need encouragement, not attacks.
• There’s a proper way to voice a complaint about a referee. Let your coach or team manager handle the complaint. It’s their job to report any complaints to the governing soccer league.
The next PAL referee training is expected to be scheduled for March. Check back on the PAL Soccer program page to find out more.
On August 2, the PAL Seahawks returned to the newly renovated Kimbell Field for their 51st season. Even though our kids have been playing on the new field for two months, the official grand opening was Sunday, September 19, 2010. The Junior Midgets and their coach, Quincy Collins, were on-hand for the official ribbon-cutting (while the other teams were playing our regularly scheduled games at Kezar Stadium).
The Kimbell Field renovation is the result of a partnership between City Fields Foundation and San Francisco Rec & Park. Kimbell is the sixth field that has been renovated, and the first football field. PAL soccer and baseball players have benefitted from other field renovations over the past few years—Crocker-Amazon, Franklin, Garfield, Silver Terrace, and South Sunset. Like the PAL, City Fields Foundation believes in the power of sports to change lives and effect positive change in the community. San Francisco has a limited number of fields, and no space to build more. Each time a grass field is replaced with turf, the amount of available playtime is tripled (no rain-outs or fallow seasons). Already we have seen the increase.
Says Head Coach Coach Greg Isom about the Kimbell renovation, “The new field has re-energized the neighborhood. More kids are showing up to the field, and they’re excited. They enjoy playing on it. Even when we’re not practicing there are more kids at the park playing pick-up games.”
All Seahawks football and cheer teams are advancing to Golden Gate Regional Conference playoffs. Winners will advance to Western Region Conference championships and possibly Pop Warner Nationals in Orlando!
It’s halftime in PAL/SFRP basketball. After three weeks of rugged basketball, some 64 teams, ranging from third through eighth grade, are getting ready to burst back on the court and sink some more baskets.
The league includes 44 PAL teams and 19 SF Park and Rec teams. They play each other in two divisions: a younger division (third through sixth grade), and a middle-school division (seventh and eighth grade, with a few sixth grade teams).
The PAL/SFRP basketball season is a relatively short one — six weeks — from October 4 to November 19. Playoffs take place right before Thankgiving.
The PAL/SFRP basketball program comes at an unusual time — the fall, before most school basketball seasons get started. But this gives our league a special appeal. Many basketball coaches like the PAL/SFRP season because it gives kids a chance to warm up and practice before their school season kicks in.
For more information, visit the PAL basketball website page.
Helen Gibbons: faithful PAL donor
SWING THAT BAT: Eugene Gibbons (right) was captain of the SFPD baseball team and a PAL baseball coach in the 1950s and '60s. He is pictured here with the captain (left) of the SFFD baseball team.
First in a series on PAL donors. Who are they? What motivates them?
Helen Gibbons has been eagerly watching the Giants playoff games, although she calls herself something of a fair-weather Giants fan. But when it comes to PAL, she is anything but fair-weather. She’s one of the tried-and-true, through-thick-and-thin, never-say-die fans.
The 90-year-old resident of San Francisco’s Sunset district says her association with PAL dates back to the late 1950s. That’s when her son Tom was a PAL kid and her husband Officer Eugene Gibbons a PAL coach.
Eugene passed away in 2006. He was a San Francisco police officer for 30 years, working for most of his career in the juvenile bureau. He had a great love for baseball, and managed the baseball team for the SFPD, in addition to his PAL coaching. Her son Tom is now 63. He recently retired from a career spanning 37 years as corporate treasurer at Del Monte Foods.
It was around 1959, the year of PAL’s founding, that Officer Gibbons hooked up with PAL by doing what many parents do — signing up to coach his son’s baseball team. He coached the team for two years.
That brief, early association made a lasting impression on Helen, who now counts herself among PAL’s loyal donor base. In fact, her generation has always supported PAL, even when their own children no longer played PAL sports and long after they themselves had left the ranks of coaches and referees. Their devotion runs deep.
Gibbons says she gives less than $100 two to four times a year. Until last year, her donations were matched by former employer Bank of America, where she worked for 30 years, retiring as assistant vice president. She laments that the matching program was discontinued for BofA retirees, presumably to save money in a tough economic time.
“I think I donated a little more because of the matching gift,” she admits. “I know it should be the other way around … It sounded like a plus.”
Small donors like Gibbons are the bread-and-butter of PAL’s funding. Gibbons thinks more people would support PAL if they knew more about the great work that PAL does, even if they don’t have children in sports.
“It’s such a worthwhile program,” she says. “I just think that the whole idea of PAL, to get kids interested in sports, keeps them off street and helps them develop their areas of interest.”
She also believes it’s important for kids to be exposed to police in a safe setting, such as the soccer or football field. She would like to see the bond between PAL and the police strengthened.
“I just feel that if kids start young, they have a different feeling toward the police than if they get a ticket because they parked in the wrong place.”
These days, Gibbons spends her time with her three children, eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, one of whom is currently a PAL kid. She also likes to go out for lunch with fellow BofA retirees or fellow police widows, admitting that, at her age, the thought of cooking lunch does not excite her. The Giants winning the World Series … now, that’s a different story!
The newly renovated Kimbell Field was officially unveiled at a ceremony on September 19.
Kimbell, located at Steiner and O’Farrell streets, is the only public turf field on the city’s north side, which makes it a coveted field for schools and teams north of Market Street. The field is also used by PAL’s popular Seahawks football and cheer/dance programs.
City Fields Foundation, which in 2006 began renovating many of city’s fields to turf, estimates that Kimbell’s renovation will translate into an additional 3,580 hours of sports play. Turf fields are year-round; they do not have to be closed due to rain or to give the fields a rest.
The renovation, which took almost a year to complete, added new bleachers, benches, bathrooms, and state-of-the-art lights. In addition, Kimbell now boasts San Francisco’s first and only batting cage in a public park.
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was present at the kickoff ceremony, called Kimbell “hands down one of the best sports fields in the city, if not the Bay Area.”
The Kimbell project is the latest in a series of field renovations designed to boost the number of playing fields available to youth in San Francisco. An assessment in 2004 found that San Francisco needed an additional 60 athletic fields to meet current demand. The project was done in cooperation with San Francisco’s Park and Rec Department.
Altogether, the City Fields Foundation will have donated a total of $25 million toward upgrading a total of seven city fields throughout the city, including the Crocker-Amazon fields in the southern part of the city. The fields are estimated to have added 66,000 hours of sports play for the city’s youth.
Visit the City Fields Facebook page for more photos of the reopening festivities.
Thanks to all of SFPD and friends 
who came out to the Mariposa Hunters Point Yacht Club Friday September 24. We had great company, yummy food prepared by the SFPAL Law Enforcement Cadets and the Hermanos Unidos, and lively music by District 8. And did we mention the superb weather? Looking forward to seeing everyone next year!
Congratulations to the graduates of the First Summer Cadet Academy class! See photos of the graduation Our new cadets will begin their station internships after Labor Day. Thanks to all the officers at SFPD who made this such a great program for our cadets.
by San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker
Two dozen San Francisco teenagers are getting a glimpse of what it takes to be a police officer this summer through a new Police Activities League program intended to create a pipeline from the local streets into city law enforcement.
