First of all, thank you for all of your support and well wishes as I embark on this journey. It means a lot to have so much support while so far from home.
I arrived here in Stellenbosch (some 30 hrs after leaving Tampa) at about 11p local time on the 12th and after picking up my luggage and meeting Marius and Hendrick, the academy administrators, I stepped into the house, at about midnight, where I would be staying for the next nine weeks. The house is one story with two rooms and an attic, each with two beds, and two more rooms with one bed each. The latter are used by two women studying at the university. There are two bathrooms, two fridges, and a shared kitchen and living area. Including Emily, who arrived a day after me, there are five referees in the academy. Evan (27 maybe, USA) and Geoff (20, Zimbabwe) share the attic, I share a room with Ryen (19, SA), and Emily has a room to herself. In case you weren't keeping count that makes three Americans, one Zimbabwean, and one South African.
The house is within walking distance to the university where our morning sessions take place. On Thursday, my first day, the day stated with a vision session at Stellenbosch University's (large, maze-like) gym. The session was mainly using peripheral vision and reaction time to push buttons as they lit up. Our scores were recorded so there was some friendly competition going on. Since the other three guys have been doing this for over a month now, my scores were much lower on the whole. It was fun, though. After that we hit the weight room to get ripped because all referees are lean, mean, whistle blowing machines. It actually was tough all around workout so we worked up a good sweat. Thursday was a light day so after that went back home to wait to go to lunch. Lunch and dinner are provided by Stellenbosch high school and we eat after the youngsters have cleared out. Sometime after lunch we went to Paul Roos high school (producer of the most Springboks in SA history) to officiate their trial matches.
What they call trials we would call tryouts or probables v possibles. Each age group (U19, U16-14) has about seven different sides and during the trials the coaches try different combinations so they can determine who will make which squad. The matches are shorter halves but full speed and full contact. Much like youth matches back home the players are very responsive but they do make mistakes that all players make at such an immature age. If I was to make a comparison to US sports, I would say that the first team U19 at Paul Roos is similar to the top high school football team in Florida in that they are much larger than their peers and look like, and play with the intensity of a contending university side. Including Friday I have officiated 7 or 8 periods of varying level and length and they have all been exciting in some way.
After trials we went to dinner. Normally dinner is served at the high school but on Thursday we went to the mall for dinner because there is an Italian restaurant that serves all you can eat pizza for US$6.50. The pizza was tasty so it wasn't a bad deal but a strong majority of the pizzas contained some sort of pig product so I ate maybe one slice per for offerings. At the end of the night we were all stuffed and headed back home.
Friday morning's training consisted of water aerobics, stretching, and cardio. The water class was led by an older English South African woman who was interesting, to say the least. I don't have the words to describe her so until you participate in her class you will just have to trust me when I say she put her own flair into the class. Besides the five of us there were about 20 other participants and the average age was grand mother; perhaps great grand mother. While the are old, they are probably more fit than you are. They kept up just fine and didn't show any signs of quit while some of us refs whined from time to time.
Instead of heading back home to wait for lunch we went to Hendrik's office to find out about a youth tournament today (Saturday) and then we went to his house to pick up Emily's luggage. Since her flight arrived so late in the night she stayed in a guest room instead of with us. Later we age lunch, helped out at another day of trials, then watched the first half of a U19 first side friendly between Paul Roos and another school. A few dozen spectators showed up to give the match an air of some importance. My biggest take away was the kids seemed to play with the same skills presented by high school teams in the US but here they are all older and look like men. Of course, there were some differences, namely these student's superior kicking.
At half time we left for dinner and to relax, play with our new WiFi and get ready for the tournament in the morning. The tournament will start with 7s, go to 10s, and finish with 15s in the early afternoon. The ages are U11 and U13 and all five of us will have eight games throughout the morning (the match lengths will be shorter than normal).
Sorry this post took so long to publish and read. From here I will try to post every other day or so but no promises. Please feel free to leave comments, ask questions, subscribe to the blog, and definitely keep following along. I should be carrying a camera with me so pictures will follow. Thank you.
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