Officiating is more than a game, it's a job.

Publication: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Byline: Nick C. Sortal

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Adolescence is tough enough, with teachers and parents bossing you and the constant dramas of whether your classmates like you.

So why take a job where your every move upsets half of the people around you?

Well, Fred Dreibholz and others like money, love sports and have found a way to connect the two. And if they don't have thick skin, it's going to thicken quickly.

Dreibholz, 13, is one of about 200 referees in the Soccer Association of Boca Raton, Fla., most of whom are high school or middle school students, who want a part-time job with flexible hours _ and found their ideal one involves a striped shirt and a whistle.

He makes about $40 for three Saturday games, and the irony is a bonus: now he has the authority over the adults. That's because _ surprise! _ it's the parents and coaches that can get riled up; the 9- and 10-year-olds he officiates are compliant.

"I try to block out the parents, and when the coaches yell, I either walk away or tell them it would be better if they just coached their team," says Dreibholz, an eighth-grader at St. Joan of Arc in Boca Raton. "But almost everybody is really nice, which is good because I was pretty nervous when I started."

Referee assignors _ adults who book the officials for the rec leagues, middle...

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