The Trouble Maker Becomes the Rule Enforcer

Yesterday I had one of the most stressful shifts at my job that I have had all year. It was the night of quarterfinals for intramural hockey. One of the teams playing was comprised of some of my closest friends. The other was one of the fraternities on campus. I had supervised a shift with this team the night before and knew they would bring a group of fans but I did not anticipate it would be as bad as it was. During warm ups, one of the referees came up to me and started with "I know this has already been a horrible shift and I don't want to make this worse but I have to tell you something" he proceeded to tell me that one of the players told him most of their fraternity would be attending and that they were coming straight from the bar. They ended up with probably at least 50 fans showing up and I can reasonably infer that they did indeed come from the bar. Before the game even started, I decided I was going to take action before the situation could get out of hand. I called over that team's captain and explained to him that having fans was fine but if they got out of line or created issues that their team would receive a penalty and I was not afraid to remove people from the venue. It was actually very effective. The captain spoke to his brothers and while throughout the game they were loud and admittedly didn't always use the most appropriate language, it never escalated to anything unsafe. Within the first few minutes I heard one of the fans using an air horn, which is never allowed in any of our sports. Since the crowd was so large I couldn't tell exactly who had it but I had a general idea. I immediately left the bench area and went up into the stands and confiscated it. My position always puts me in an extremely unique position because the people that I am disciplining or evaluating are my age. This type of relationship is an added challenge for me because it takes away the authority that adults can easily command from younger employees. There is also only one of me at any given time during a shift. So taking control of a situation that involves around 100 other kids between fans and two teams is pretty difficult. But what I have learned and tried to continually do is take control of a situation early. By talking to the captain and immediately going into the stands I showed them that I wasn't going to sit back and let the situation escalate. They were still difficult but the shift ended smooth enough. My father had sent my family group chat a picture of him reffing from the night. I told him, my mother, and my sister that I got to take a fancy new air horn. My sister immediately said "I'm laughing at the idea of you ruining someone else's fun" I replied that the trouble maker had now become the rule enforcer and my father said he was thinking exactly what my sister said. That brought me back to our idea of change. That class made me do a lot of self reflection. Yesterday I had a real breakthrough in realizing just how much I have changed over the years. My family has always seen me as a really easy going person and someone that isn't always the easiest to control or a stickler for the rules. Now I have really grown into my leadership position. I have gained a lot of experience in tough situations while also doing something I am extremely passionate about.