[Jeff Waegelin]

Speaking as a referee (from the Detroit Regional), G25 is a very difficult call to make, because it is, at its heart, a judgement call. Even when you know the rules extremely well, as I do, it is incredibly difficult to make that call, and to keep it consistent, because every situation you witness is different. What may be crystal clear in one situation is clear as mud in another.

In addition, everyone has a slightly different idea of what counts as G25. Some believe that most contact should be eliminated to encourage offense. Other referees take a laissez faire approach, saying "let the teams play." This is, for the most part, how we called the rule at Detroit. If we thought a team was intentionally ramming or tipping, we would call a 10-pt. penalty, warn them, and tell them the next time was a DQ (we never got to the DQ stage). If, however, the contact appeared to be incidental, legal defense, or the call was very questionable, we would call nothing, and just give the team a warning after the match.

So, as you can see, it's not an easy call to make, and an even harder one to make consistently. Is there room to improve on this? Absolutely. There are ways, I'm sure, like requiring all referees to attend a training seminar at FIRST HQ, but you have to remember: referees are just volunteers. They sign up on the FIRST website like everyone else, and, often, FIRST needs all the volunteers they can get. When you run things that way, a 2-hour training session on Thursday is really the best you can do.

Finally, even if you were able to get all the referees to a weekend training session, and had regular meetings to ensure consistency (both of which are possible for a small number, perhaps, but not every single referee), G25 is, in the end, a judgement call. You can define it extremely well, but it's still up to the men and women on the sidelines to make the final call, and, they're only human.