Ep. 210 – Leadership, Referees & The High School Soccer Experience

In Episode 210 of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, Ben shares a preseason talk he delivered to the Herndon High School soccer program.

Yes — this episode is about soccer.

But it’s also about leadership, accountability, resilience, and how adults and athletes share responsibility for protecting the game.

Inside the conversation:

• Who high school referees actually are (and why they’re there)
• How referees prepare for games
• Why high school soccer is different from club soccer
• New rule changes players need to understand
• What referees think about dissent and sportsmanship
• Why leadership shows up most clearly when things go wrong
• And why captains carry more responsibility than they think

Ben also discusses mistakes referees make, how they handle them, and what separates resilient teams from fragile ones.

Whether you’re a player, coach, referee, parent — or just someone who cares about youth sports — this episode offers perspective you probably haven’t heard before.

If you’re from the soccer world, also check out the previous episode on “The On-Fire Brain” and managing escalation in youth sports.

🎧 Episode 210 is live now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com

What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?

In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers. 

One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.

There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Bet has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, and still make it home forgetful. Each week, Bett brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Why Soccer Teams Should Listen

The High School Championship Mindset

Who Referees Your Games

Pay, Pressure, And Respecting Officials

Why High School Is Harder

Become A Referee To Improve

Timing Rules And Clock Differences

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Hey everyone, welcome. Excuse me. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. If you're one of our usual listeners, you know that I talk about. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. We welcome back our usual listeners who know that sometimes I do talk about things other than building a great law firm that will make your family happy. For those of you who may have found this podcast because you're coming out of the youth soccer or the high school soccer world, welcome. What you're going to hear is my discussion with a local team here, preseason high school team, where we talked about who the referees are that come out to do their games, how we are training for the games, preparing for the season, preparing for their games, some observations about sportsmanship. And of course, we talk about some differences between high school and club soccer. So if you're from the soccer world listening to this, you're also going to want to go back a couple episodes and listen to the talk that I gave to referees about how to deal with the on-fire brain. It's about the science of managing tempers and dissent and anxiety and emotion, all of which we often see in a high school soccer game. So, wherever, whichever world you're from, we're glad that you're here. And now listen in on my conversation with the Herndon High School Boys Soccer Program, Boys and Girls Soccer Program here in Northern Virginia. Okay, welcome. Thanks for coming out. State champions, boys state champions last year. How many here? How many here were on the field in the state championship game? Raise your hand if you're on the field. Got some playing time in the state championship game. Just one? You like graduate the whole team? How many play for a good club team? Good club team? Have you ever played for a club team that won a national championship? Nobody? Did you win a national championship? What was better? High school or national championship? Okay, why? Good cop. All right. So when I was your age, I played for a high school team that won everything in Virginia. Longest game ever played in Virginia, seven overtime periods. And if if there was no winner, we were going to replay the game the next week, right? This is the years I'm older. The years before we would decide championships by penalty kicks. A month later, my team won the United States United Championship. And both of those things were awesome. The high school experience was more awesome because you're playing in front of your friends, in front of your family, you got crowds, you're like stars at the school, you walk up and down, like, hey, we're the state championship. By the way, you have a big target on your back, you know that for this year, right? I want you to think about this, though. One of the things I wasn't good at and didn't know until later was how much of the adults in my life are contributing to my success when I'm 16, 17, 18 years old. All right? So your parents and guardians, your school administrators, your athletic trainers, your coaches, and the referees, the guys and gals who come out to do your game, are all there and they all have one thing in common, which is that they love soccer, they love youth sports, they like the high school experience. So there's nothing like it. So cherish that. Cherish this experience that you are having. And certainly cherish your win last year in the national in the uh state championship. All right, my name is Ben Gloss. I'm gonna talk about three things tonight. Like, who are the referees that come out to do your games? How are we preparing for the season? How do we prepare when we're getting ready to come out to do a game at Herndon, boys or girls? Second, I'll talk about some of the differences between high school soccer and the games that you play in the weekend, because there are some differences, and sometimes people get confused and they get upset at referees because they're confused, and parents don't know anything. Like parents know the least about any kind of soccer. And then we'll talk a little bit about leadership. So, first of all, there's this year we'll be assigning referees to two over 2,300 games. We have referees everywhere from we have an 18-year-old who was the boys' youth referee of the year. He's still in public school, he'll only be doing private school games, so there's no conflict. All the way up to I'm 68, you got referees that are older than me. You probably have seen everyone from the youngins to the old ones on your games, right? 2,300 games that we cover across, I think like 200 schools in this region. By the way, you play in the most competitive region in the state. There are more good soccer teams that are high school teams in the Northern Virginia area than any place else in the state. We cover games from way down to Mount Vernon, down Stafford, here out to Loudoun County. Some games, it's 45 minutes driving back after a game for me. We have two FIFA referees on our panel. Do you know who the FIFA referees are? They're guys and gals. So we have two women, Danielle Chesky and Megan Mullen, who referee international soccer. They referee professional soccer. You probably won't see either one of them on a league game, but you could see one of them on a regional final, perhaps, or certainly in the state championship. We have referees who are moving up the ladder, who are one day will probably be professional referees. We have referees who are referee in college doing your games. And we have people like me who've been involved in the game for a long, long time. So I am in my 52nd year of refereeing. Doesn't mean I'm 52 years old. It's in my 52nd year of refereeing. So it doesn't make me the best or good, right? I do have a bunch of wisdom and experience. I'm a little slower, and it's hard as hell to keep up with you all 16, 17, uh, and 18-year-olds. Uh, we have referees, these referees are your neighbors. So there are college students who are referees. There are business owners. You might have a multimillionaire out refereing your game, a doctor, someone who's doing great in the military or national security, a teacher. Like they are just they are one of you. We have uh obviously referees born in America, we have referees in immigration from all countries all over the all over the world. And they come out there really for the same reason that your coaches coach, that we like the game. So I did the math a year ago on what we get paid. So if you're doing a varsity center, like you're probably getting around$125 for the game. It's like, oh, that's really cool,$125 for one game. But when I take and divide across all my time, all my training time, the seminars I have to go to, the classes, the testing I do, the travel to games, it's$16 an hour, about the same as I could get if I was working at Safeway. So just know this that when a referee comes to your game, he or she is there because they like soccer, have typically been involved in soccer in one way, shape, form for a long time and they love the view from the middle of the field or from the assistant referee, assistant referee position. Kind of big ask. It would be really cool if high school students would say to a referee, to a match official before the game starts, hey, thanks for coming out tonight. Especially you get a weather like this. Like you guys are running around playing. Like this is miserable stuff, right? It's miserable for your parents sitting the stands. But look a referee in the eye. Maybe you're the captain, you go out the center circle, say, hey, thanks for coming out tonight. You have scrimmages that are coming up, right? We get zero, we get paid zero, we get a little travel money. We might come out and do two games one year. I did three back-to-back games in a scrimmage season. That's all like forced volunteer work, just so you know. And it would be a big deal if you all just said, Hey, thanks for coming out. It sets a tone for a game because we're all in there together. You will not typically find a new referee doing one of your games. So all of our referees are experienced. There are many, because we've been recruiting, who are new to the high school game, and that is a far different experience than the weekend game, but all of them have experience. The high school game, in my opinion, is the hardest game to referee. The fields are rather narrow. You all always play at about 115 miles per hour. There's a lot of free substitutions. There's ball boys and ball girls, so we don't get any rest. So as soon as the ball goes out, someone's throwing a ball in and we're going. And everything is done very, very fast. In my experience, there's not a lot of build up side to side, let's control the tempo that you might see on a wider game with great club teams on the weekends. So just know that these are hard games for us. And we really, really, really want to be right. We want to go out there and have fun, get fitness in, deal with the mental and psychological challenge of managing 22 players, coaches, fans, all of that stuff, showing up for game 45 minutes or 30 minutes early. Uh, we do match reports and the game is over, filling out obviously goals, red cards, yellow cards, detailed reports. If there's a red card, now we're on the phone at 11 o'clock at night to our commissioner. Because a lot of things happen uh when you have when you have cards. So we are out there to enjoy the game just as much as you are, right? Differences between how many how many of you are certified referees? A handful. All right. Come up to me afterwards, I've got something for you. Really? So when I was 16 years old, both my club coach and my high school coach said to our players, my teammates, you should go and become a referee. You will become a better player if you know how to referee. And so that's my pitch to you. You can make money. Yeah, people yell at you from sometimes, but it's a great, like you build great life skills. And so, 16, I started, I started doing this. Uh, when I was in still in high school, I went on to um, I told you about high school was was fun, club soccer was great. I played on scholarship at William Mary, and then I have coached and refereed forever since then. All right, a couple of differences between uh high school and the club stuff that you play on the weekends. First one is like the timing. The club soccer is like the soccer you see on TV. 40-minute halves, 40, 35 minute halves, 40 minute halves, whatever it is, play from zero to 45. And then if there's been injuries and stoppages, the referee adds time, typically. See it all the time on TV. In high school soccer, the clock starts at 40, goes down to zero. And when it hits zero, the half is over or the game is over, just like basketball. The difference is in high school, we actually can stop the clock, injuries, penalty kicks, red card, yellow card, things like that. But we don't add time. And by the way, this is the same timing rules that you will play if you play in college. They play with a countdown clock that when it gets to zero, it's over. So you get a free kick near the end of the half or near the end of the game, and the referee ends up blowing his or her whistles, like time's out. Like, don't be upset at the referee. He or she is just following the high school rules. And we'll always tell you if you ask, hey, right, how much time's left? 20 seconds left. Well, shit, you better get going, right? Better get this free kick or this corner kick in. So just understand that. Second big difference is, of course, you get a yellow card in a high school game, you have to go out. There's no minimum time to sit out. You can come back into the next substitution opportunity. There is, uh, we have rules. High school soccer is built around, and you'll hear referees say this all the time in the center circle when we're doing the coin toss, is this is an extension of the school. Hopefully, you've heard that from your coaches and your administrators. This is an extension of the school day. The Virginia High School League, which runs all of the sports in high school Virginia, including the referees, puts sportsmanship number one, and they are serious about it. And the Virginia High School League, they think soccer players are crazy because there's more ejections and fights and things like that in soccer than in any other sport. So they keep showing us the stats, and we're always trying to get better. Like we're trying to fail, which is why we have meetings like this. If I come out and talk to you, and you think Ben is like, he's not just like a guy in a yellow shirt that hates us and because he's calling fouls against us, he's an actual human being. I happen to be a lawyer, dad to nine, granddad to ten, still, still liking it. So that's why we do meetings like this. High school, you everybody know what the word taunting means or to taunt somebody, to make fun of your opponent, to score a goal and go like that in front of their face? That's a red card in high school. Do referees like giving red cards? We do not like giving red cards. Red cards means paperwork. Red cards means I'm up late at night on the phone with the commissioner, telling the commissioner exactly what happened. Um, there are other rules about equipment. Oh, let's talk about equipment because I heard you guys mention it out in the hall. All right, I was watching Messi on TV the other night. He's got a shin guard that's like it's smaller than a playing card, right? Can you wear those in high school? No. And here's, I'll tell you, here's what's gonna happen this year. You come out in a shin guard that's too small, the referee sees it, and we're looking. And look, we do not want to be the uniform police. Like, that is not what we're like to do. Like, is the tape around your sock the same color as your sock? It's supposed to be. It's all in the rule book. Like it's easy to see in the rule book. You come out in a small shin guard, the referee's gonna make you change, and then the referee, yeah, right. One of those, right? Yeah, those are gonna, I would say, look, dude, like a guy comes out with this. I'm like, don't come crying to me when somebody whacks you. Like, I'm not gonna feel bad for you at all. Yeah, so the shin guard is supposed to have a sticker on it or an emblem from something called NO something. It's in the rule book. Now, by and large, if we see a shin guard that looks reasonable, we're not looking for the sticker. You come out in that thing, and then you tell me, referee, I changed and put a good shin guard on, I'm looking for the emblem. So that's getting close. That's probably gonna be okay. All right, that's probably gonna be okay. But here's what I say: listen, listen. You get with your coach, you get with your coach, and you read the rule book and you measure it. Simple. What I found is that every player actually does have a pair of proper shin guards in their bag. They just don't want to bring it out the first time. All right, new rule for high school soccer this year. Everybody's excited about this. Not is now for the first time we have accumulated yellow cards. Listen to this, guys. Accumulated yellow cards can result in a suspension for both players and coaches. This did not come from the referees. This came from coaches and administrators. The referees are not keeping track of this. The referees do not know who's on four yellow cards. We go into the season, or we're going to a game. We're just there to referee the game. And we're there to do the very best job that we possibly can. No other big, I think, sort of rule change, rule differences between um high school and the club soccer and timing. Oh, I know. Injuries, injuries. So if you get a knock in a game, the referee, you know, just kind of a regular knock because it's someone who wore stupid chingarts, referee is gonna come over and say, Hey, how are you? How are you? And if you say, I need a coach or trainer, coach or trainer comes on, then you do have to leave the game. Okay, you can come back, but you do have to leave the game. So referee will check. If the referee sees you've been hit in the head uh with a ball really hard or you hit your head on the turf or goalpost or something, we're not waiting. We're not asking you, are you okay? We're beckoning the trainer on because we want to be, we want you to be safe and we don't want to make a mistake with head injuries. Then you then have to be cleared by the official trainer at the game. Okay, let me talk to you about leadership and then I'll I'll get you, I'll answer your questions and we'll get you out of here. Um, have you chosen your captains yet? No, no one has chosen captains. All right, let me just let me just start here. It's really easy to be a leader when you're winning. That's easy. When things go hard and adversity comes, like state championship team goes and loses a couple games to teams that they shouldn't lose to early in the season, and the anxiety level goes up a little bit, right? And they're and you're you guys are all these schools are putting all this stuff on social media, like dissing other teams, like damn. I think that's going to be challenging. But it's when things go bad or hard, is when leaders stand up, stand out. And here's um here's what I'm looking for in a game. I'm looking for partners on the field. And by and look, my view of the high school athlete is that you all are awesome individuals, awesome human beings. Like I think parents and coaches would be surprised to hear the conversations that we are having on the field with each other. It is by and large highly, highly respectful. It just is. But I'm looking for that man or woman on the field who I think is above everybody else, just in terms of their ability, their stature, the respect the other players have for that player, so that I can go to them if things are starting to heat up and say, hey, Susie, you're number seven. She's mad at me because she thinks I missed this call. Could you have a chat with her? And if I have that talk with you, I need you to go and have a chat with Susie. Like it doesn't, you know, you can't be, in my view, like the captain cannot be the one, like also yelling at the referee. Let me tell you this too. A lot of referees, you may not believe we say this. Like, we make mistakes, right? In a game that's going 115 miles an hour on a narrow field with 17-year-olds, like it's hard to be everywhere. And I have one view in one moment to make a decision. And I'm out there and I and I can't, I cannot say to myself, well, I just gave three fouls for Herden, so now I'm gonna give a free kick to South Lakes, right? I cannot do that. I have to look at this situation that's in front of me and make the best honest decision that I can. Now, all your games are on video. We go home, we are harder on ourselves than you guys are hard on us. We get on our group chats. Look at the video of my game. Look, I screwed this one up big time. Three years ago, I'm out here on your field, this early season game. It's uh you guys against South Lakes, and I think you have South Lakes early this year. Hernian's attacking. There's a yellow card foul, clear yellow card foul, but I'm waiting. I'm like, okay, maybe this advantage is gonna develop. Play went on for another couple seconds, the advantage to develop. Free kick back here, but I lost track of the player. I wasn't 100% sure who the uh the Southlakes player was who had committed the yellow card offense. I got some help from one of my assistants because a lot of us are wearing headpieces, and the assistant gave me uh wrong information, actually. So I made one of the biggest mistakes a referee can make. I sent off, I gave a yellow card to a kid who already had a yellow card, he was sent off. That happens, and we hate it when that happens. I went home, I watched a video, I called my commissioner, I said I give a yellow card's a number, whatever. I said, but that was wrong. And so they were able to reverse that, and the kid didn't sit out the next game. We know that we make mistakes, right? Because we are human beings, some of us older, much older than you are. Like we get it. Last thing, I see two kinds of teams out there, two kinds of cultures, right? The team where when something starts to go wrong, you don't like my decision. One of your teammates is lazy, doesn't track back, goal is scored, forward misses something easy. You start to snipe at each other. I'm like, this is not a very resilient team. And I can kind of tell the culture of the school, the whole school, by what I'm watching there. And the other kind of team is a team that says they have true leaders who say, Okay, Billy, that's all right. We need you to stay in the game, we need you to do better next time. You can do this. Those teams over a long run of games will do better in the much better in the hard games, um, for sure. Okay, I don't want to keep you forever. What questions would you like to ask a referee? We're not in the middle of a game. I haven't made any screw up calls yet tonight. What would you like to know about our side? Well, I'll tell you, um, we're we're in seminars, we're in webinars every week. Uh we have to take a uh VHSL Vinian High School rule book test. We have to attend a VHSL seminar. Um, and then we do prepare for your game. So if I have Herndon and South Lakes or whoever, right? I want to know what I'm walking into. What's your record? I'll go look at it because all the stuff's on the internet now. I'll ask my friends, has anybody done these to you? Is there, again, not to be biased or prejudiced, but just to be prepared. We like the top referees like doing the competitive rivalry games. It sounds weird, but we like to because that's where we can show our skill. Who has questions? Do not I always say this one more thing, maybe for the coaches, agree or disagree. The captains should be in charge of your teammates' uniforms. If a teammate gets a yellow, or if a teammate comes out in illegal equipment, the yellow card goes to the coach. Coach only has three yellow cards and he's suspended, right? For me, that's a captain's responsibility. Every practice, every game, if you're the captain, I would say make sure your teammates are properly dressed. Play. You play the way you practice. No jewelry, upper side shin guards, in practice, dudes. This is what captains do. This is what leaders do. I hope you have a great season. I hope you don't have any controversy. Talk to your parents, tell them like referees can't even hear you because we got earpieces in and you guys are way up in the stands. Just tell them to come cheer for the team. Okay, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben. Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.