Former high school mathematics teacher Mark Geiger was also a highly-respected Major League Soccer referee. Photo Credit: Major League Soccer
Many outstanding educators are also recognized for their impressive accomplishments in athletic arenas. One of these is Mark Geiger, a former high school math teacher who also worked as a full-time referee for Major League Soccer in both the United States and Canada.
Mark was born on August 25, 1974, in Beachwood, New Jersey. After graduating from Trenton State College, he taught Advanced Placement Math at Lacey Townships High School in Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey. In 2009, he was one of 103 teachers who received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST). This prestigious award is given annually to the best elementary and secondary science and mathematics teachers from across the country.
Mark earned his National Soccer Referee badge in 2003 while still teaching. He began his career as a part-time Major League Soccer referee a year later. In 2008, Geiger was added to US Soccer’s International Panel of Referees, making him eligible for higher-profile international matches. The position required extensive travel. When he was offered a full-time, salaried position with the Professional Referee Organization, he reluctantly decided to retire from teaching. He wanted to referee international matches, and he was aware of FIFA’s preference for officials with full-time referee jobs.
Mark once confessed that his experiences as a teacher made a significant contribution to his success as a soccer referee. He remarked that math is about quantity, structure, space, and change, and that is also true of the dynamics on the soccer field. He said that maintaining order and clarity in a classroom of gifted, confident students is not that different from fairly governing a game for 22 of the world’s most gifted and talented soccer players. “When I was in the classroom, it was 25 or 30 students each with a different learning style,” he has said. “On the soccer field you have 22 different players, each with different personalities. So it’s about recognizing what’s going to work with a particular player and then implementing that,” he observed. “The situations that are in the grey areas, preventing players from taking that next step, communicating with them, managing them, working with them” is what a good referee brings to the game, he continued.
Mark has been recognized as one of the best professional soccer referees in the business. He worked the Olympics games in 2012 and four matches during the U-20 World Cup finals in Colombia, which culminated in his officiating the championship game. The U-20 final marked the first time an American official refereed a major FIFA men’s tournament championship. Mark also officiated the FIFA’s Club World Cup in Morocco, and he worked the fifth-place match between the Egyptian and the Mexican clubs. Later Mark served as the fourth official at the championship game. He was also selected to officiate the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. For his outstanding work as a referee, Mark was selected the Major League Soccer Referee of the Year in both 2011 and 2014.
In 2019, Mark retired from refereeing and accepted a position within PRO as the director of senior match officials.
