Where's the Gracious Professionalism?

[J-Blondie]

Originally Posted by popnbrown

Any idea why that wasn't so for the first few regionals? I've heard they started to add them in after sometime. Midwest Regional (week 6) had 2 additional refs as scorers (or 4...i might just be referring to elims).

As far as this, I think that volunteer numbers were low at many regionals. I know FIRST was still calling for volunteers. In the end, I think it's possible they had a lack of experienced volunteers who were willing to referee. Reffing is a tough job, and I'm sure to most volunteers it's extremely intimidating to most people. I won't volunteer for that position in small competitions I've helped out with in the off-season because even then it's tough and the only thing at stake then is glory and a trophy and it's mostly for fun.

That said, the negativity against the refs this season isn't going to help volunteer numbers for reffing either, which is also a thing to consider. Whether what we need is more volunteers, an easier game to referee or more training in that aspect, that is the feedback you should give to FIRST. Information on how, from a team perspective, things went wrong so that hopefully in future seasons it can be fixed.