Chief Delphi - Team Update 17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Jones (Post 597231)

Kevin,
But all of that is really beside the point. The fact that our fundraising sucks does not give us license to berate those we perceive to exacerbate our predicament. Especially when that person is not at the root of the problem.

Consider the job handed to the head referee. He has to decipher volumes of rules that are far from perfect. Then has to on-the-spot train a crew selected by a volunteer coordinator a whos only criterion was that they signed up on VMS and were screened. Then he has to spoon feed the rules to the teams, many of whom, as we all know by the questions here and the Q&A, didn’t bother to read them. Finally, he gets to make decisions that are sure to please only half of the people. He gets to be the focal point in what could be described as mother of all things waiting to go wrong.

So what does he get for doing his best with a very flawed process? He gets bad mouthed by ones he is serving, and stabbed in the back by the architects of that malfunction.

I’ve served with refs from Atlanta to Vegas and most points in between. I’ve seen people who had no business being on the floor – no concept of the game – no grasp of the rules – no officiating experience – or an obvious conflict of interest. I’ve seen good referring criticized on this forum by people who had no idea what they were talking about. Worse yet, I’ve seen very weak refs have the gall to come here and criticize others. What I have not seen was FIRST take exception as they would when the vitriol was directed at them.

We sat there at the Champs in ’05 and ’06 and listened as some of the rules got officially mangled. The ruling at GLR came nowhere near that kind of incongruity; it came nowhere near having as much of an impact on my psyche.

If we think that just anyone can step in and officiate, then that’s what we’ll get – just anyone. Meanwhile, the ones with real experience and talent and intelligence and jurisprudence will have gotten sick to their stomachs. They are rare; we ~~are railroading~~ have railroaded one of them!

There have always been referee problems. I have seen refs ignore rules in previous years. I've seen refs forget about the "outside bumper zone" contact and overlooked teams are surprised once Atlanta comes around that they're calling a penalty that they didn't see at their regional. I've seen referees say quote, "I don't give a <expletive> what the refs did last week. I'm the head ref this week." I've seen good referees blackballed because they spoke up to a head ref about a rule that was wrong. I've seen refs with team affiliations make obvious wrong calls to favor their team. I've been to regionals where the rules were interpreted differently each week. I've been to regionals where the rules were CHANGED by FIRST every week. I've seen poor written rules having to be interpreted by the refs week after week. I've also seen inspectors interpret rules completely wrong, and forcing teams to completely rewire their robots. Did any of these things ruin the regional for me? OF COURSE NOT! They just presented an additional challange.

The actions of inspectors and referees are always closely scrutenized, and this year isn't any exception. The difference this year, is the crackdown to make sure all referees are on the same page. Thank Aiden for that. This year more than any previous, there's a focus on not just making the right call, but making the same call as they are across the country at the same time.

Why are we making such a big deal about the problems this year? Maybe because it's because as FIRST has gotten so big, their reactions to regional problems has gotten equally gigantic. Just because one person cut his finger in Washington doesn't mean that people in New York don't know how to use a bandsaw. Just because 30 people complain about the reffing on CD doesn't mean that that ref is a bad person. He made a mistake, just like everyone else has done in past years. I have heard many views of Great Lakes, and most of them don't mention the head ref's interpretation of the rules. If it didn't affect the majority of the people I talked to, why is there such a huge reaction from FIRST? Everyone is fallable, GDC members and Head Refs included.

Referees in any other sport don't have the problem of reinterpreting the rules every year. The NHL had to do it once last year, and they had more problems with calls between referees than FIRST sees all year. Are FIRST refs more adaptive than NHL refs? You bet! They have to be! But when a referee in the NHL makes a bad call, does anyone know what happens? Not me, and probably nobody except the NHL and the referee himself. Maybe it's a good thing, because then nobody has the right to say, "I want that game against the Red Wings played over again because the Ref sucked!"

FIRST Refs have another advantage - (most of the time) it's not a monarchy, it's a democracy. At each regional, the refs get together and decide what actions were penalties and which weren't. Can anyone tell me for a fact that this didn't happen at GLR? And if not, aren't ALL the referees at fault? What about the GDC members at GLR? Did they agree with the referee's interpretation? (These are rhetorical questions. I really don't want to know the answers. Just think about them.)

<<sigh>> I guess the good thing that may come out of this is that it makes a wakeup call to the other referees that if they're not doing exactly as FIRST says, then they should get on board and call one game across the board. But in the meantime, maybe you shouldn't be persecuting individuals for their faults, and think about all of the rules they DIDN'T botch up. Did everyone at GLR have fun? Was everyone inspired? WERE THE RULES CALLED EQUALLY TO EVERY TEAM? If so, didn't the refs do their ultimate job? Maybe you should thank your referees for all the hard work they did at your regional, and stop nitpicking about not being able to use your team's strategy. After all, isn't FIRST not only about the robots? All of you students and mentors did a great job building a robot, and building a TEAM around the robot. Nobody's life should be ruined because of one (non)rule called at one regional last weekend. We're engineers! We should be able to adapt to stupid little things like that. If not, maybe you're taking the game itself way too seriously, and not taking the CAUSE of FIRST seriously enough.