Notes from Chris

Episode 1457

By his own admission, Trevor Rappleye wasn’t the most athletic kid. Some seventeen years ago, when he was just thirteen, his struggles with footwork presented a problem when he signed up to his local soccer club.

The difficulty in playing was killing his enjoyment of the sport. He still wanted to be a part of it, but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. Eventually, though, the idea hit him like a head butt. Instead of playing on the field, he’d get the ball rolling on something else.

That’s when Trevor set his sights on becoming a referee. It would allow him to use his soccer knowledge in a productive way. Although he was still young at the time, only fifteen at this point, he started the process to become an accredited soccer referee for the state of California.

After his training, which involved some theory but mostly in-person courses, Trevor felt ready. He was young—and still unathletic—but the training gave him new confidence and he wasn’t about to blow the momentum.

Since he was already involved with his local soccer community, his first few games were easy enough to come by. He’d ref the lower level matches played by his local club. For Trevor, the size of the game didn’t matter much. With every whistle blow, he felt his confidence not only as a referee but as a person.

As he approached his twentieth birthday an opportunity presented itself to attend the U.S. nationals. There was one thing he’d seen about the referees that got lots of games in different tournaments: they made sure they were noticed. They did so by attending some of the larger competitions, even paying their own hotel, food, and travel costs. All with the goal of building a profile within the community.

So, Trevor spent eight hundred dollars assembling his own referee gear and equipment and headed off to the week-long nationals, which was certain to be a net loss. But Trevor wasn’t concerned, he viewed it as an investment and, at worst case, he’d have a lot of fun. At best he’d make valuable connections in the refereeing world.

From there, he went from strength to strength. He continued refereeing higher profile matches and competitions. As the caliber of the game grew so did his paycheck and he can now command over five hundred dollars for a single game. Trevor, who now works in corporate film production, never became a full-time referee—but that was never the goal. Instead, he uses his refereeing funds for fun money. With extra earnings of nearly ten thousand per year, it’s something he still gets a kick out of.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Learn more about Trevor and his main hustle when he's not refereeing games at his website, CorporateFilming.com.

SEE ALSO:

• Soccer Fan Plays The Odds; Earns Affiliate Commissions: A British soccer—er, football—fan sets up a blog that refers visitors to bookmakers. He gets paid for every referral, making this a project worth betting on.
• Oil & Gas Worker Becomes Sports Videographer for Polo Games: A project planner gets inspired by his son’s soccer game and then creates a rewarding business as a sports videographer.
• Super Fan Scores Big in the Football Community: A Dallas Cowboys fan turns his passion for sports and traveling into an epic road trip and a foam-fingered brand.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,

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