So I referee youth soccer here in North Alabama (AYSO, all-volunteer), and something happened Saturday night that left me a bit puzzled then and I am still unsure about it now. Since it also fairly mundane, I’ll post it here.
During the first period of a 12U boy’s game, one of the players kicked another in the shins when the ball was not near the play. I called the foul and pointing a finger at the offender, told him he was lucky not to get a Yellow Card and to take care. It wasn’t right under his nose, either, I was a good 6-7 feet away.
At the break the coach (who happened to be the kid’s dad), came out and told me he had no objection to me calling the foul, but did not want me pointing fingers at his kid. I answered something moderately soothing and the game went off without further incident.
After the game I was talking to another ref who’s around my age (I’m 64) and mentioned the incident and he said he had the same reaction from a coach a few weeks ago when he waggled a finger to tell the coach to ‘cool down’ and the coach got very upset with him.
Now, I have had a finger wagged in my face more than once (most of the time I deserved it), but I’ve never known it to be a mortal insult. Is there something I am missing about today’s culture, that finger pointing or wagging is not acceptable conduct? Or was the coach just being the rear end of an equine?
I’m too old to change habits without having some feedback, and it seems to me this is the crowd to give it to me (good feedback, that is…).
Don’t you have to point at a player, so everyone knows who’s getting the foul? I would say if you’ve been doing it this way for some time, I would just keep doing what you’ve been doing.
I worked for Disney for a short time; during my training course, it was made clear the Disney Point (two fingers or whole hand extended) is non-optional, and that a single-finger point was, for whatever reason, frowned upon. I still do it today, many years later, not from any desire to be inoffensive, it’s just ingrained now.
araminty, thanks for that; I’ve never heard of it, but it is good that there apparently is something about a single-finger point that some folks find upsetting. I’ll see if it can work on the open-hand point, I use that anyway as a soccer indication.
I’ve also heard that pointing is impolite, and that pointing with an open hand is less likely to be offensive, although I believe it’s different in different cultures. ISTR that Bill Clinton did that thing where he pointed with his thumb to avoid giving offense to people who found pointing with an index finger to be insulting.
ETA: When I call on a student in my classes, I most often just point with my index finger. No one has complained yet.
I’d never heard of this before, but a bit of Googling confirms that pointing is definitely impolite and probably aggressive. It’s one of those old-timey rules that has survived into the modern day.
I remember reading a book called “Black & White & Never Right: A Hockey Referee” and one thing stuck with me. The author mentioned the anger induced when using a finger to flag an offending player. I think it was related to the motion conveying an emotion of angry accusation.
His solution was to use the entire hand, palm up, fingers together and extended to indicated the player he was giving the penalty to. Seems to be a simple effective way to achieve the same result as pointing with a finger.
Probably only tangentially related; but I remember during the Bill Clinton presidential election era that he was known for his non-threatening thumb-fist when making speeches because the pointed finger was deemed to accusatory.
This is something that I also did not consider an offense, but have learned from my spouse that it is. My spouse goes so far as to scold when I use a single index finger point at an inanimate object or in a direction, as if it’s one of the most awful things in the world.
Color me confused, and not entirely on board with the reaction.
My grandfather and father both used to point with a single finger. But not an index finger.
A middle finger. :eek: I’m sure that was a lot better.
I wonder if that was some old German thing, or just one of Grandpa’s quirks that Dad picked up.
ETA: as little as I watch sports, I have noticed that officials pointing out an individual seem to almost universally use the “flat hand all fingers” point, rather than just one finger. So this appears to be a thing.
I was taught to avoid that gesture, as well, but never got an explantion of why.
There seemed to be some mystique about it, like superstitious people might think the person pointing was casting an evil spell on the target.:eek:
I remember watching an old rerun of Superman on TV and the episode had a little man from the moon (the actor may have turned up in Willy Wonka years later) who could temporarily make humans stop all voluntary actions. I assume their cardiopulmonary functions continued because they would remain in position and, once they recovered, continue their sentence exactly where they left off. Naturally, bad guys started using the visitor and then the Daily Planet journalists talked to him.
Lois Lane: Do you know what happens when you point your finger at someone?
Moon Man: Yeah, sure. Mom slaps my hand and says it’s rude.
Jimmy: Well, okay, but when YOU point at Earthlings, they seem to freeze.
My bad habit is that I use everything for a pointer – knives, pencils, Tai Chi swords… – and even if I’m empty-handed, I’ll tend to point with my palm upward and my fingers loosely curled around an imaginary handle, rather than with clenched fingers. I don’t notice that I ‘point funny’ when I do it, but when someone else points as if extending a weapon I tend to observe and think, “Hey, (s)he points like I do!”
:dubious:
–G!
Pointing is normal for a ref.
Encountering obnoxious twits on the sidelines is also normal for a ref, unfortunately.
For a coach to come over and take objection is a whole ‘nother level of special, tho’.
I’ve seen referees do that; my grandfather (who was the longest-serving ref in Spain) explained that on one hand you need to point clearly, on the other many people dislike being pointed at, and on the middle when you’re dealing with kids they’re often being taught that “pointing your finger at people is rude”. You point at one 8yo and get a chorus of “you shouldn’t point at people!”; it stops the game longer than the initial foul.
There are times and circumstances when pointing could be consider rude by some, but it is not rude in the circumstances of the OP. Calling people rude for legitimate use of pointing is just as rude as pointing would be when it is inappropriate.
Is this the only time you’ve been called out for pointing? I gather you’ve been reffing a long time, so you’ve probably had to put up with your fair share of irate parents.
I personally don’t see anything wrong with it, as it’s certainly less humiliating than announcing the fouler’s number for all the world to hear as in American football, followed by cameras tracking their every step. You’re certainly not in a position where you can please everybody.
I used to have a coworker who was a principal at Alamance High School. He told me how he used to organize cheerleader tryouts by selecting judges based on one criteria: when he asked them if they’d like to be a cheerleader judge at his school, they replied “Alamance who?” That way, none of his judges could be accused of favoritism, but parents still complained to him when their precious snowflakes didn’t make the cut.
