REFS NEED LOVE TOO
An honest perspective from the 3rd team on the pitch... the referees. Through humor, analysis and education, we are slowly changing how people view referees and officials in all sports. We care and have a love for the game as much as any player or coach. Sometimes even more. Youth soccer (proper football) is a multi-billion $ industry in the US. Tremendous money is spent on players, competitions, travel etc., but almost nothing spent on developing the next generation of referees. I hope that this Podcast inspires, educates and humanizes the next generation of referees for their own development and appreciation from the players, coaches and spectators they need to work alongside.
REFS NEED LOVE TOO
My Dad's Legacy: Kindness, Integrity and LOVE
Grief has a way of focusing the lens on what actually matters: how someone lived, how they treated those who couldn't fight back, and what they stood for even when it was unpopular. My dad never reffed, but he taught me everything about making life’s hardest decisions—kindness first, integrity always, and the courage to do the hard right thing when it counts.
We trace a life well lived: European trips, science missions to Alaska and Hawaii, a deep love of national parks, and a New Yorker’s unlikely passion for country line dancing that led to a 30–year romance.
We revisit tossing a baseball on city streets, marathon training before dawn, and the quiet discipline that turns effort into outcome. We share how encyclopedias on the floor, a giant Webster’s dictionary, and early computers turned learning disabilities into a path forward—fueling concise communication, clear thinking, and the confidence to advocate.
You’ll hear about a 37–year career at Queensborough Community College, summers at NASA, an 1,100–page dissertation on wave theory, and a refusal to soften standards just to keep the peace. The throughline is leadership: empathy without condescension, accountability without cruelty, and match control rooted in respect and the spirit of the game.
There’s family history and service, too: caregiving after Holocaust loss, showing up for elders, single fatherhood with PTA meetings and homemade lasagna, and even building one of the first elementary school computer labs—so kids could have opportunities he never had.
The takeaway is simple: love unconditionally, stay curious, work past comfort, and anchor your choices in honor. That’s the playbook we use on the field and at home, and it’s the legacy we hope to live up to—one “good man” moment at a time.
If this story resonates, share it with someone who taught you a hard lesson with a gentle hand.
If you follow me on social media, you will know that my dad died last week. Additionally, if you follow this podcast for the last couple of years, you will know that I often talk about my dad. And there is no one person who has had a larger impact on my life. Most of my memories from my childhood involve him. My dad had been sick for the last couple years. He lived an amazing life. And I'm going to tell you about that life today and my memories of him. And let me tell you, he lived while he could. And when I say lived, I mean I'm talking about a man who traveled the world, you know, been to Europe, I don't know, six, seven, eight times, been to Alaska and Hawaii on science missions. I mean, literally science. Like he'd go for learning excursions on these scientific tours to learn about volcanoes and geology and about glaciers. He loved our national parks. He loved the Grand Tetons. He loved Colorado. He loved the Grand Canyon. He took us to Wyoming, to Montana, to Utah, the Redwood National Forests. He took us to zoos and, you know, science museums. I mean, all over the place. He was definitely someone who, you know, just loved every minute. My gosh. I mean, he grew up in New York City, lived his almost majority of his life in New York City, and became like a really avid country line dancer. And seriously, every week he'd go country line dancing. And that's where he met, you know, the woman he's lived the last 30 years with, Marilyn, woman that we love a great deal, and someone who loved him, you know, really the love of his life. And so today I'm just going to tell you about my dad because he really did shape me as a human being. And he actually really loved this podcast, which I didn't know he listened to the podcast. I knew he watched all of my videos. He would like literally call me every single day and we'd, or every other day, and we'd talk about a video I posted or a decision or something like that. He was not a big soccer fan, but he was a sports fan. He really was a big sports fan. And he was very curious about the laws of soccer because I was very curious about the laws of soccer and football and these challenging decisions. And so he was curious about it. He was just someone who always loved to listen and to learn, which is so cool. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about him today. And I appreciate you coming with me on this journey. I promise I'll keep it somewhat. There'll be some soccer referee analogies in here as well. But this one is for my dad. It's for Pops. He shaped me as a human being. I am the man I am today, in large part because of the man he was. And I am forever grateful. I want to share his legacy with you because the qualities that made him an honorable man are the exact prerequisites for leadership on and off the soccer field. There was never a time in my life when I questioned how much my dad loved me and how much he cared about me. And that's probably the most important truth that you can know about him as a man and as a father. His love was unconditional. And I tell you, that's exactly what we've done for my kids and even my kids' friends, and my kids will tell you, you know, if you ask them, my kids' friends will tell you that they loved coming to our house because although we tried to lead by example and we tried to, you know, give guidance and advice as needed, it was a no-judgment zone that we could have conversations about any topic, and it was an accepting place. You didn't have to lie here. We just wanted people to be safe, and then we gave them, you know, trust. Uh, but we could have open dialogue. And it was a wonderful thing for my children, but also a wonderful thing for all of our children's friends as well. And still to this day, our house is a safe haven. And uh I think my kids really appreciate that because we love unconditionally. My early memories of my dad are simple, you know, pure, and kind of tell you everything about his support. I specifically, the first thing that I thought about when I was driving down to see my dad when I knew he was dying, and his we were at his last days, I remember us playing catch in the street when he got home from work. Because we grew up in New York City, so we didn't have a lot of space to play catch. Now, I was fortunate. We actually had a house in Queens, which none of my friends had a house. Okay. We lived in flushing, we had a house, but it was a small yard, small front yard, you know, small backyard. So if you wanted to have like actual proper catch, like you were throwing from a pitcher's mound or something like that, you'd go into the street. But that also meant we didn't have a backstop, and my aim was pretty awful. And I must have sent him running hundreds of times down the street, okay? You know, to retrieve one of my pitchers, pitches. Because I, you know, he'd throw a ball and gosh, it would bounce and go all over the place, and he'd be running off down the street to go get that baseball, man. But no matter how bad of a pitcher I was, he always encouraged me. He really taught me resilience and sticktuitiveness is kind of the first rule of the game. If you throw a pad pitch, just stick with it and keep working on it. You can't be successful if you give up easily. He also taught me that effort and tenacity can beat talent. That's right. He ran marathons. My dad was not a natural athlete. Like me, he runs kind of heavy. We're not the fastest people, but he would, you know, set his mind to a goal and do it. And when I asked him this week, Dad, why do you decide to run a marathon last week? He was like, Well, it was a challenge. I wanted to see if I can do it. And he did it, man. He finished the New York City marathon in three hours and 44 minutes. That is no joke, okay, of a pace. That is really, really good, you know, for just anyone who's not naturally a runner. And I would love training with my dad. This is like, I'm a morning person today, and I swear I got it from him. Because when he would get up to go train when I was four, five, six, seven years old, I loved waking up with him on those weekends, those Saturday mornings, even during the week as well. We'd wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. He'd be doing his push-ups and jumping jacks and stretches, and I'd do that, and I'd be there right next to him. And then when he would go out for a run, I'd hop on my bike and I'd ride with him. And we'd ride for five miles, seven miles, you name it, loved it all around the streets of Queens. It was so wonderful, you know, watching him train for those races. He did hard work to be able to do it. He would push himself past the point of comfort because he was so committed, you know, to overcome the challenge that he put in front of himself. Again, and that commitment, you know, again, it's not just a physical commitment, right? It's a it's a mental commitment. I actually, he got me really into technology and computers at an early age. I became like a lifelong learner, all sorts of different subjects. My kids make fun of me now because I, you know, I used to tell them about how when I was a kid, we had a huge set of like actual encyclopedias. That's right. We didn't just say, hey, Alexa, you know, what is blah, blah, blah. I would actually literally sit on the floor and you know, you start at A, and I would go through every single page in the encyclopedia. That's right. And I'd read about all sorts of different things. I loved the dictionary. We had that a massive Webster's dictionary. And I'm talking, I mean, I think about it now, this book like so big in my memory, but it was big. This beautiful blue hard cover and this gold lettering on the front, and you open it up, and there's thousands upon thousands of words. So cool. And we would, in our house, we would constantly use challenging or rare words to describe things. We'd congratulate each other on using S E T words. And and if someone used one, we're like, I'm not sure if that's right, we would bust out that dictionary to make sure that we were using them correctly. He wasn't offended when we cussed. I mean, my gosh, we grew up in New York City, okay? So, like the F bomb, you know, was used like all the time in conversation, not necessarily in our house, but I mean, you heard it on the streets, obviously, and in school. He wasn't offended when we cussed. It was just that he knew that there were better words available to more eloquently express ourselves. So he encouraged us to use them. That simple curiosity and dedication to learning definitely got instilled in me. And I think it's a quality of every good leader, of every good ambassador, and definitely every good referee. If love was the foundation, you know, then kind of grit being the structure. Uh, but the absolute pillar of my dad's character was his integrity and strong sense of right and wrong. He had a tremendous work ethic. Okay, he's he dedicated over 37 years of his career to Queensborough Community College. That's right, where he worked. He could have gone and been a professor at different universities, you name it. But he, you know, he loved New York City and he wanted to give a stable life to us. So that's where he he stayed for almost his entire career. But he was someone who believed in honesty and accountability, even when it made him unpopular. That's right, he never became chair of the department. Okay. He was a thorn in his dean's side. He was one of those guys that, you know, if you did the work, you know, you'd get a good grade. But if you didn't do the work, he'd fail your ass. That's right. He would not make the easy decision just to pass someone because they were complaining to the department chair and have the problem go away. He was steadfast. He would, and that was, you know, could be a challenge. I know teachers today still deal with this issue. He would rather stand alone for the right reasons than be together for the wrong. You know, you think about like the toughest call a referee has to make, you know, that penalty, you know, in the final minute, you know, of a 0-0 match or the sending off of a star player. You know, that decision requires, you know, that exact same kind of courage, you know, that commitment to upholding, you know, the laws of the game, regardless of who it's going to make happy or angry. It's the very definition of referee integrity. And that sense of honor extended well beyond his job. You know, it was in how he lived. He worked so hard to take care of his aging relatives. He didn't have a big family. Very, very humble beginnings for my dad's family. And my dad was born in 42. He lived in a shared apartment, you know, in uh the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. He was an only child, and most of his family was killed in the Holocaust. My grandmother and grandfather on my father's side worked as a butler and a maid. That's right. Even though they were a teacher and an accountant when they lived in Germany, they worked as a butler and a maid. I actually read one of the references from my father of one of the houses that he worked in, and he had glowing reports at his ability to remove stains from the uh the rich person's clothes that he was a butler at. You know, that was what he was celebrated for. This man who was, you know, probably a brilliant mind and an accountant worked as a butler and a maid. So, but um my dad's parents died really early. Actually, his dad died, I think, at 57, and his mom died at 61. And so the last kind of remaining, you know, elders in his family were his uncle Kurt and cousin Ruth. And my dad was so great with them. He worked so hard to help them manage their finances and make sure they got the care they needed and was always advocating for them and really going out of the way to visit them and meet them and make sure that they felt connected, you know, all the way up to their dying day. And my cousin Ruth lived to like 100. So let me tell you, he spent a long time really trying to make sure that they were well taken care of. And that's kind of that profound, quiet dedication. It's just another, you know, reflection of my father's commitment to accountability. I would also say, just about, you know, again, relating it back to referees, is like a great official doesn't just call like fouls or penalty kicks or anything like that. You know, they also have to manage people. They got to be able to communicate, maintain composure, teach the spirit of the game, you know, or really make calls based on the spirit of the game. And he was a genius too, but he didn't look down on people. He tried to meet them where they are. He had a doctorate in electrical engineering. He got his his bachelor's, his master's, and his doctorate from City University in New York. He wrote an 1,100-page dissertation on wave theory. He became a professor of electrical and computer technology in the 1970s. That's right. Like he started in like 1978 or 1977 is when he started that job. I mean, really early on in the cutting edge edge of computing or personal computing at that time. Okay, it was not a common thing to do. He even worked, so over his summers, instead of teaching summer classes at Queensboro, he would actually go down to Texas and he would actually work at NASA. That's right, when he wasn't teaching and he was working on the space shuttles. It's pretty wild. I was not like that. So I struggled with almost every single subject in school. If I couldn't bullshit my way through it, okay, I was pretty much guaranteed that I was possibly going to fail that class. But my dad never once made me feel stupid. He never made me feel stupid. He appreciated me for who I was and the way my brain worked differently. I had learning disabilities. I had reading and comprehension issues. And I'm sure, I'm sure if I if I was a student in today's modern world, I would have been diagnosed ADHD. I remember one of my teachers put me in the corner, like, you know, they had the old Dunce cap. I would have to sit in the corner and face the wall because I was a quote unquote non-worker. I kid you not, that's what I was called. But I knew I wasn't stupid. And he knew I wasn't stupid. I mean, I took an IQ test. I had an IQ of 132. Okay, that's like in the top 2% of people worldwide. And I also, he knew I had a really high EQ or what's called emotional intelligence. Like I could talk to anyone. I was in like a traveling, like acting theater group. Like I, like, listen, I could definitely communicate, that's for sure. But if you looked at my grades, you'd think I was a moron. I would spend hours in resource room with the other kids getting remedial education. Okay. There were many years where I barely passed my classes. One year in junior high school, I think I got a 66 on the math regions exam. You needed a 65 or higher to go into the next year, to go from like seventh grade to eighth grade or whatever it was. I mean, I was literally on the edge of failing. But my dad had this kind of gentle, encouraging instruction with me. You know, he wouldn't do the work for me. He would kind of help me understand how to do the work, and then he would patiently kind of guide me through it so that I could do the work. And he knew it was a grind for me, but he would help me through it all the time. As a referee, you need to remember that you're dealing with human beings and that you have to communicate with clarity, with empathy, and with respect. You know, try and meet people where they are. Don't try and humiliate them. That will not help. Just because they don't know the law as well as you do, trying to, you know, show them that they don't know the law as well as you is not going to help bring them to your side. Okay. It's not going to help you with credibility. It's not going to help you with your match control. So try and be patient and empathetic as you're trying to communicate with them. His writing was amazing too. My dad had what I think to be beautiful handwriting. It was very mechanical, and he had the ability to craft such a powerful note. His ability to be concise and impactful, okay, when he would write, is just ultra cool, like really effective communication. And I think that's so good. I mean, there's people who could be really verbose, you know, but my dad could write a beautiful handwritten three-paragraph note that is just so cool to see. And I think I got some of that from my dad, without a doubt, in my writing. And then also my ability just nowadays to create these like really, really short, concise videos. My videos are usually between 60 seconds and 90 seconds. And I think about like how my dad used to communicate and really help me edit what I was writing down to get just to the point of where there was nothing left to take away. And I think that's so cool, you know, to be concise yet impactful. He also knew for me, too, that because of my learning disabilities, I couldn't write well. I had horrible handwriting. And still to this day, my handwriting is awful. It looks like I'm a four-year-old or a five-year-old trying to write with my handwriting. But because my dad was really into computers, he saw the opportunity for me to start doing like almost all of my homework, even when I was in like second and third grade in the 80s, man, the early 80s, that I would do my homework on computers. And my teachers would complain and stuff, be like, well, how do I know you're the one doing this work or something like that? But my dad really advocated for me. You know, again, he's like, he knows the work. He could sit here, you know, and do the work in front of you on a computer. Trust me, it's he's the one who's doing it. And so I was able to express myself and get my ideas across. And my dad's warmth, he was a great conversationalist. And he was outrageously nice to everyone that he met. He would connect with anyone and everyone. Um, he's still to this day, literally last week, I was on the phone with his best friends from high school. Okay. I mean, literally, his three best friends from high school and college are still alive and they were still best friends. He even kept in touch with the kids from his block he grew up with, like nursery school friends, still love and were together, those that were still alive. He never met a stranger, and it was almost to the point of being annoying. Just gotta be honest. I'd have to remind him when he was chatting the ears off of our waiter or waitress that that person had other tables they needed to cover and they couldn't talk with him forever. When I would go see him at his college, everyone knew and loved my dad. Okay, and I'm not talking about just the other professors or students. I'm talking about the janitors, the cafeteria workers, the security guards. Everyone knew my dad, and he knew them by name, and everyone got a little gift for the holidays. He was an ambassador of kindness. And it's that generosity of spirit that really does break down walls and fosters community. Okay. He taught me how to love and lead by doing both, you know, simultaneously. My nickname personally, about me, like at one of the companies I worked at for 15 years was the mayor. Like I always loved welcoming new team members and getting to know every single person on the factory floor as a manufacturing company. You know, regardless of their background, ethnicity, age, I wanted to get to know them and make them feel respected and seen, just like my dad did back in Queensborough. We shared a lot of wonderful experiences together: snow sledding, fishing trips, pitch and putt at different courses around the New York City area. He loved nature. He took me camping and to so many different national parks. We went to science museums in almost every city we visited. And these weren't just vacations, they were lessons in curiosity and connection. My dad stepped up when my parents got divorced and took care of my brother and I when my mom stepped away for about 10 years of our life, and he was the best single dad in the world. Even though he was working so hard and picking up extra classes to make ends meet, he still made an amazing effort to cook his meals. Lasagna and London Broil were his signature dishes. He was very involved in my school. He was the vice president of the PTA, and he made it to all of my baseball and soccer practices and games. He even wrote a grant to create one of the very first computer labs ever built in our elementary school. And again, this is the early 80s. There weren't any good educational software programs written for young kids at the time. So he actually wrote his own. He actually built English games, math games, word games, and I just found the article going through his old stuff in the newspaper about it. I mean, it's just amazing to see this guy. He just cared so deeply about us and wanted to give us and other people so many amazing experiences and open them up to technology as well. It's just so cool. He taught me so many things. I mean, he taught me how to drive, taught me how to cook, taught me how to lead, how to teach, how to laugh, not just at jokes, but also to be able to laugh at yourself. But most importantly, he taught me how to love. My children adored their grandfather, who we knew as pops. And I'm so glad he got to see them grow up. And I know they will always remember him. Again, my dad's parents died really early. And my dad had a heart attack at 47 years old. And he was saved. He died, but he was saved by the Bay Terrace Community Volunteer Ambulance Corps who came to his rescue. He was out for a walk and he had a heart attack and he almost died. And I am so thankful that he was able to live another like 35 years, you know, for the great efforts of those wonderful people. And we we donated some money to him in honor of him and his death. But I'm so glad that my kids got to know my dad. And a couple that like this one phrase just always sticks with me, too, about my dad. If you did something well, like he did something well, he's not like, oh, that's awesome or whatever. He would just say to me and my brother, he's like, good man. When I asked him what he wanted to be remembered for, he said that he just wanted to be remembered as a good and kind person. Gosh, he definitely accomplished that goal. Man, wouldn't people be so much happier in life if their goals were to be a good and kind person like my dad. In every difficult moment for me, as a dad, a husband, a coworker, a friend, in every interaction I have with someone online, and in every tough decision I make going forward as a referee, I can stop and think, what would my dad have done? And the answer is always going to be the same.
SPEAKER_01:He would have been kind, he would have been honorable, and he would have done the hard yet right thing to do.
SPEAKER_00:My dad may never have blown a whistle in a soccer match, but his integrity, his poise, his kindness, his intelligence, his curiosity, and his dedication to what he loved and valued echo louder than any call on the field. That's his legacy. And it's the quiet call that will guide me and my family for the rest of our lives, both on and off the pitch.
SPEAKER_01:I love you all. Thank you so much for the literally hundreds, if not thousands, of positive messages you have sent my way over the last couple days.
SPEAKER_00:It has meant so much to me. So much to me. Sincerely. I appreciate you. Thank you for your time. Love you all. And I hope your next match is red card frame.