Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos
Remember they are volunteers, and they are doing the best they can.
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The more often we see the above stated publicly, the more we must take care to remember that it should continue to remain an expectation, not an assumption. I am counting on them to make the necessary preparations for a competition so they are as invisible to the action as possible, and the vast majority of their decisions do not adversely affect the ability of the kids who are participating to extract maximum enjoyment out of the event. Any decisions that lead to controversy should be explained to minimize any bitter feelings or misunderstandings among the involved parties. The best refereeing crew is one that performs its job completely unnoticed by the event's participants.
I like to take a middle ground approach between the two extremes of
A.) A ref crew that is fully shielded from scrutiny/constructive criticism/accountability by their volunteer status.
and
B.) A ref crew that is required to perform flawlessly, and all necessary steps must be taken to correct any mistakes that do occur.
If a referee takes his/her
job seriously and does as much as he/she possibly can in the time he/she has between her regular job/family/home life to prepare for this
job, e.g.
A.) Reading and understanding the initial game rules and all subsequent updates
B.) Talking with other referees both before and during the competition season to develop a consistent interpretation and application of these rules from match to match, event to event,
C.) Evaluating his/her performance between events looking for ways to improve,
...then that referee can be confident that he was doing his
job to the best of his ability. People certainly make mistakes, and that's ok, but proper preparation and attention to detail minimize the frequency of such mistakes. I don't think that's too much to ask of any person willing to be a volunteer referee.
I humbly suggest that if a potential volunteer ref doesn't have the time or patience to take on a significant portion of these responsibilities beforehand, then he/she should not volunteer for that position and instead help the event out elsewhere where such preparation is not as critical to doing a good
job.
Devil's Advocate - If the above expectations were ever officially endorsed/tracked by FIRST (and not simply assumed), and we did observe a marked decrease in the number of volunteer refs because so many were unable/unwilling to live up to these expectations, as many claim would happen, then I would conclude this would be true evidence that room for improvement exists in the overall level of preparation among referees. One way to combat any mass exodus of volunteers would be to encourage FIRST to develop simpler game rules which make it much easier for these volunteers to do their jobs. Another would be to have FIRST kick regional committees (and themselves?!?) in the pants to seek out and lock down refereeing volunteers sooner rather than later. If, as Andy says, refereeing is truly one of the hardest jobs at a competition, then perhaps finding shoes to fill those positions should be treated with a greater sense of urgency by the event's planners? Is any of this possible? Do people try to do this already and it's just too dang hard to achieve any real progress? I don't know, but I hope we're at least trying.
While a referee is only accountable to himself for the decisions he makes, I feel he IS accountable to the competing teams if ever asked to COMMUNICATE the reasoning behind any *controversial* decisions. A referee has a right to his opinion, and according to the rules, his decision is final, so Jay/JVN are correct - never ask a ref to change his mind. It is an unproductive exercise - accept the call and move on. But a ref should never dismiss a team's explanation request and miss out on the opportunity to LEARN from the situation. If a coach or student
politely asks a referee to explain his reasoning behind a call, I feel that ref is obligated to provide it. If that referee has prepared for the competition in the manner I described above, he should feel no guilt or hesistancy to explain the call to anyone who questions him in a respectful manner. And maybe, just maybe, through his conversation with the team, a ref may realize every so often that he was mistaken in that instance, and he will be more attentive in the future to see that the same mistake is not repeated? Woodie sez: communication is key. So it should be written, so it should be done.
Finally, to stick with the original thread topic regarding instant replay, I know replay will most likely never be used as a tool to reverse referee oversights (isn't that a more diplomatic term?), but I was wondering how feasible it would be to eventually implement video screen replay of the most exciting highlights of the matches, either after every match (preferable, but unlikely), or perhaps at a few evenly spaced times throughout the day (more likely)? I feel this would add more excitement to a competition and would permit some of the people who are slaves of the pits to possibly *catch up* on some of the action they might have missed. This video could even be presented one time per day, perhaps right before the awards ceremonies. You would have to have a pretty slick video editing person to accomplish this, no doubt. Just a thought.