[GaryVoshol]

Since this thread is still going, and since "the Boss" has responded, I'll throw in my $.02 - take it for what it's worth.

Madison brings up some good points, and other later posters have also contributed. Such good points in fact that many of them are already being done. There is the new referee training and certification, which ensures that the referees are familiar with this year's rules. Many refs return year after year, and many participate in more than one regional (I'll be at 3 this year). Last year one of the paid production staff jokingly said some of us were nuts for being there so much.

Other things go on in the background. For instance, someone said there were no refs on Thursday. How do you know? Perhaps there weren't any zebra shirts making calls, but at any event I've been to, at least some of the referee crew is there on Thursday watching and learning.

Yes refereeing is tough, but I really enjoy it. "The best seat in the house" is how I've heard it referred to. That's true - you get to see all these amazing machines up close and personal. And I've recently been told by a mentor that he'd rather herd a bunch of HS kids all season long than ref. That's a valid point as well.

In at least 4 events (season and off-season) I was at last year, the referee did take the microphone to explain calls. Not every last call - I wouldn't expect it this year for instance to say "Blue Robot 9876 crossed the line backwards 3 times." That kind of information can easily be passed to the announcer, and in several events it has been done. Even if the penalty isn't announced on the PA, the refs often will speak to the offending team privately.

One other thing that must be stressed is that we don't want to have phantom penalties. The referees have a flag in their hands, and use them to indicate when a penalty is given. Andy Baker made a special emphasis on this at IRI. I suspect that often gets lost in the noise of all the overstimuli at an event. And yes it's a shame when one alliance member racks up 30 or 40 points of penalties that are not noticed by the other drive teams, and suddenly that 22-point margin of a win is taken away. But that's hardly any different than the wide receiver who sees his touchdown taken away because of a clip in the backfield.

I've read reports from at least 3 regionals this week that the refs were excellent. Maybe the participants didn't always agree with the interpretations, but the same interpretations were made consistently all weekend. The next goal of Referee Development needs to be to make sure all events get the same quality. That's hard to do. If Oregon had problems this year, it may be due to the volunteers that were available, both in terms of time and travel. My daughter's team went to a regional last year, and they were dismayed at the laxity of enforcing certain things (not specifically referees) compared to what they had experienced at other regionals. Enough so that they probably wouldn't be returning to the regional. We don't need to have any regionals categorized as "the one with the poor refs". And I'm sure the GDC is working to eliminate that distinction.