{"id":8977,"date":"2014-09-29T12:10:10","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T16:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8977"},"modified":"2014-09-29T12:10:11","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T16:10:11","slug":"back-from-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8977","title":{"rendered":"Back From Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"mark-geiger-96\"<\/a>
Last summer, Mark Geiger became the first American to officiate a match in the knockout stage of the World Cup. Photo by AGIF\/Shutterstock.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Former high school math teacher. If you\u2019ve heard Mark Geiger<\/strong>\u2019s name, it was most likely preceded by those words, a favorite phrase of TV announcers and headline writers this summer. That\u2019s when Geiger \u201996 became the first American to officiate a match in the knockout stage of the World Cup. It was accurate\u2014Geiger did spend 17 years teaching, mostly calculus\u2014but probably a bit misleading, in that it implied Geiger just one day decided to drop everything and follow some far-fetched dream that led him to Brazil.<\/p>\n

The truth? \u201cI started refereeing when I was 13,\u201d Geiger says. \u201cMy mom and dad wanted me to have a job, and that\u2019s the job I chose.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Major League Soccer ref since 2004\u2014he was named MLS Referee of the Year in 2011\u2014the 39-year-old Geiger is quite possibly the most accomplished and highly regarded American referee, well, ever. That respect didn\u2019t come easy: To earn their World Cup gigs, he and his \u201cteammates\u201d\u2014a pair of assistant referees\u2014navigated a three-year-long gantlet of high-profile tournaments, evaluations and classroom sessions, being graded on their performances at every step. Finally, on Jan. 15\u2014\u201cat 2:24 a.m.,\u201d Geiger says with a laugh\u2014he received the email from FIFA headquarters in Switzerland. He\u2019d made the cut.<\/p>\n

Once in Brazil, Geiger more than justified his selection. In a tournament in which officials are guaranteed only one match and evaluated after each, he worked five games, three as the referee and two more as the fourth official. By sheer coincidence, he officiated some of the tournament\u2019s most memorable games, including the Uruguay\u2013Italy match in which star striker Luis Su\u00e1rez bit an opponent, and Germany\u2019s historic 7\u20131 thrashing of host Brazil.<\/p>\n

Since the World Cup ended, Geiger has resumed his normal stateside work: refereeing MLS games and attending clinics as part of his work with PRO, the Professional Referee Organization. It\u2019s part of a broader effort to lift MLS\u2014and, ultimately, American soccer\u2014closer to the level of the elite European and South American nations. In that ambition, having world-class refs is nearly as important as having world-class players. After this summer, we know we\u2019ve got at least one of the former.<\/p>\n

\u2014Ryan Jones<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With an MLS Referee of the Year award and five World Cup game assignments under his belt, Mark Geiger \u201996 is quite possibly the most accomplished and highly regarded American soccer referee, well, ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-fall-2014"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}