This future doctor is a college referee

By now, Carolina senior Michael Angell has a sense of humor about the painful injuries that ended his soccer career as a high schooler.

“I unfortunately was a huge proponent of breaking bones,” said Angell, a former goalkeeper from Pfafftown, North Carolina.

A wrist. Fingers. Tibia. Throw in a torn labrum for good measure.

After those hardships, Angell found a way to stay involved with the game he loves by becoming a referee.

He started in high school, overseeing “little 12-year-old games on the weekend.” But Angell progressed quickly and began working high school games and even earned his first collegiate assignment before graduating from West Forsyth High School.

Angell kept at it once he enrolled at Carolina, the volume and prestige of his assignments growing as he improved at the craft — even amid a rigorous academic load.

Angell plans to keep officiating for as long as he can, even as he progresses with his plans to become a doctor. (Submitted photo)

For the past four years, he’s been a mainstay on soccer fields across the state, regularly officiating matches at Division I schools like Elon, Campbell, UNC Wilmington and Davidson (no ACC contests to avoid conflicts of interest), as well as local high school games and pre-professional contests.

All the while, he’s pulled off majoring in chemistry and biology in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, using refereeing “as a break from the academia.”

Friends and acquaintances across campus are often surprised at the scope of Angell’s refereeing. “If I bring up officiating, they’re like, ‘Oh, you just do Campus Rec,’” he said.

Angell chose to attend Carolina because he was interested in medicine, knew the University had excellent undergraduate programs and appreciated how intertwined UNC-Chapel Hill is with the local community. “It wasn’t one of those bubble colleges,” he said.

An example of that community connection is Angell’s role as a lieutenant with the South Orange Rescue Squad, a volunteer group providing emergency medical services. Through this work, Angell is earning clinical hours ahead of medical school.

He recently took the Medical College Admission Test and will take a gap year after graduation. Angell will have more time for refereeing but will continue with the rescue squad.

He plans to officiate through medical school — Angell hopes to remain in North Carolina — and beyond.

“I will continue this until the day I can’t,” Angell said. “I’ve always thought I’d love to shoot high and see what I can get.”

For Angell, being a referee isn’t just about getting exercise and mastering the laws of the game. He characterized the role as an “odd bridge between a therapist and an authority figure,” saying it’s helped him mature, improve his communication skills and better understand people.

“I was a very robotic referee when I started,” Angell said. “I wanted everything to be perfect.”

He learned he needed to “be human.”

“It’s interacting with the players. It’s talking with them,” Angell said. “If they run up to you saying, ‘Oh, I hate that call,’ it’s not sitting there and worrying but recognizing, ‘OK, it’s human emotion.’ Take a second, explain what you can and be done with it.”

Angell said being a referee is an “odd bridge between a therapist and an authority figure.” (Submitted photo)

The human element is also front-of-mind for Angell when thinking about the type of medicine he wants to pursue.

Like many injury-plagued athletes, Angell had interactions with doctors that left an impression on him, and he’d like to pursue orthopedic surgery.

“It’s not just physical,” he said. “There is a huge mentality piece that goes into providing a source of comfort for athletes.”

If that’s indeed Angell’s path, he might one day have the opportunity to share with others the outlook he embraced when retiring from soccer.

“Adversity is not a barrier you should run away from but rather a barrier you should try to learn with,” Angell said.