This year we need instant replay

[Cory]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

So I guess by this logic if in one year the state of California jails 2000 guilty criminals and 200 innocent people than they are doing okay because they are getting it right way more than they are getting it wrong. Something is flawed there. Anyway, I do agree with you on your points. It wouldn't be easy or cheap to implement.

There's a difference between the justice system and a FIRST match.

It takes weeks to months for a trial to occur.

When was the last time the outcome of a single match was issued a month after it was played? Given how little time refs are given to make decisions, and with only being able to go with what they saw in the heat of the moment, they're doing a darn good job.

[Jay Trzaskos]

I agree with Cory and Ken 100%, Every team has team has had one or two calls against them that they don't agree with. If you think that the refs made a mistake, go talk to the Head ref and tell him what you saw or what he/they may have missed on the field. But always be profesional about it, don't go up there and yell at the Head Ref. And don't bring up a tape from a match that happened an hour ago, or 6 months ago. they aren't going to take the time to look at it, and i doubt they ever will, because they have to much going on. With that said, in 999/1000 cases, it will not affect your outcome in the regional.

To sum it up, the system that FIRST has going is all that we really need, yeah a little better training when it comes to the refs would be nice (especially when you have Baker out there throwing flags left and right ) but they do an awesome job and we need to thank them, not insult them by bringing in instant replay.

JT

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

we need to thank them, not insult them by bringing in instant replay.

This comment made me think about a semi relevant situation.

It's seemed like that with the addition of instant replay to most (all?) major conferences in college football, the refs have almost been using it as a crutch, in that they're less likely to flag something, due to not wanting to make the wrong call, and knowing that it can be reviewed upstairs.

No idea if this would happen in FIRST (and we surely never will, as there will never be instant replay), but I'd rather see a ref throw a flag anytime they see something questionable, and then if they convene and decide it wasn't a violation, they can pick it up and go about their business.

Better to throw a flag and pick it up that not throw a flag and have a violation go unenforced.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

Every team has team has had one or two calls against them that they don't agree with. JT

Now tell everyone what we taught you kids on 229, about arguing a call.

[Jay Trzaskos]

My bad John. ASK for clarification, don't argue with the refs... never argue with the referees. They are going to call what they see, and they aren't going to change a call, and you can't make them change a call. Remember they are volunteers, and they are doing the best they can. 229 never asked to have a call changed, we asked to clarify a call once or twice, but never asked to have it changed.

Sorry John,
JT

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

Remember they are volunteers, and they are doing the best they can.

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.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

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.

Trevor, I agree. Anyone who walks into the competition with little or no preparation is doing a disservice to the community. If a volunteer doesn't have time to properly prepare for their role, then they should find another aspect of the competition where they can help with less preparation.

Originally Posted by T. Hoffman

Any decisions that lead to controversy should be explained to minimize any bitter feelings or misunderstandings among the involved parties.

Here, I have an objection. Most decisions don't become controversial until someone brings it here to vent in the public forum. Even after decisions are explained at competitions, we see folks who disagree with the interpretation and carry often venomous attacks onto CD. More often than not, the call made can be interpreted as the referee described, but someone thinks they were cheated, and no explanation will suffice. There have even been posts in these forums by referees to share with the community what was shared with the disgruntled team members. This is uncalled for.

Have bad calls been made during competitions? Yes.
As many as are represented by the threads you can find here? Not by a long-shot.

Every time I hear "we need instant replay" it usually is followed by "because we got cheated this way or that". It's never because the other team or alliance got cheated.

Replays for judgement calls = BAD
Replays of matches to see good moves = GOOD

[pyroslev]

Instant Replay would be a good thing to have for those plays that seem fishy (whatever term you prefer). It would also make for some good video in the off time, during lunch. Imagine watching the play of the day in slow motion. True, it could be abused for every penalty but if it's setup right so it's not abused, I say let's setup the instant replay.

[Greg Perkins]

DISCLAIMER <i didnt take the time to read the last 4 pages of this thread, just the first and this page>

But it hurts me to see the people are still upset that refs miss or blow a call once in a while...

heres my proposition for you, being a ref and all i have every right to say, go ref a competition and see how hard it is (Especially this year with 6 robots) to have 8 people watching 6 robots + 4 loading zones and the players stations that right there in a perfect world would be 12 refs, usually a regional will have 8 refs + 1 head ref. SO I beleive that being undermanned the refs do a pretty darn good job....
Even if you think you got fouled, you can always go to the head ref before the next match and we can huddle over it and possibly with enough votes from the refs discussion the penalty might be given.

So in retrospect i think video would be good to give another set of eyes, HOWEVER i also see it as a waste of time, regionals allready run too long as it is....

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Greg Perkins

Even if you think you got fouled, you can always go to the head ref before the next match and we can huddle over it and possibly with enough votes from the refs discussion the penalty might be given.

Are you crazy??

Do you really think the way events should run, is for every team who feels they were penalized to go "ask" the refs for a call? Either the refs saw it, or they didn't. Either they make the call on their own, based on their own impressions of the match, based on their own opinions, or they don't.

On 229, we sent our kids up after the call was made, to get a clarificiation on what happened. This is a preventive measure; we don't want to make the same mistake twice.

"Tattle-tale" complaints to refs are silly, and I hope they are smart enough to ignore them. They saw it, or they didn't. No one should be telling the refs what happened, and expecting them to vote on it.

JV

[Greg Perkins]

john the way i worded it was incorrect, you hit the nail on the head with how you said it, thats what i was striving for. sorry about that

[AmyPrib]

If everyone spent half as much time reading and understanding the rules as they do complaining, arguing, and disagreeing about rules, we might not even be having this discussion.

If you are on the drive-team, if you're a coach, if you're a strategy person, heck if you're just on a team, or if you plan to ref, you darn well better study those rules. Many teams have a game test. It becomes very apparent who has not even glanced at the rules. If you're a spectator that's going to complain about a "bad" call, you darn well better know for a FACT that the call was "bad". You better have read those rules from start to finish, asked "good" questions on Q/A, read all the updates, and re-read them 10+ more times. You might even be able to recite the rule number off the top of your head..

Sometimes there are definitely very blatant incorrect calls or "made-up rules" (especially in early weeks and many rule revisions). And, I knew the rules inside and out to be able to say that. But, most of the time what I see, is the misunderstanding or misinterpretation of a rule that gets argued about. I cannot even begin to count the number of unncessary questions on the Q/A forum. Questions are good - but when the answer is literally written in black and white in the rules - you didn't read them thoroughly. It's frustrating.

I have complained about calls at events, and I will probably continue to (not on the field though). So..... I reffed a tough IRI this past summer to see what refs go through. I'm hooked - I loved reffing - even though I did get yelled at by spectators. But, in reality, our calls were "right". The spectators did not seem to know the rules and that we clearly made the right call. I made the time to review the rules many times (since it had been several months since events) and to ask for clarifications on how things would be called so as to be consistent.

The point is - there are many improvements to be made on every side - ref training, game design committee reducing number of possible penalties, clarifying rules in their definitions, and everything else mentioned previously. But the fact remains, rules will always be there, and if you do not make the time or effort to get a solid understanding of them, there will always be unnecessary ranting and raving, arguing with refs, asking for replays, and so on. This is not always the case - but it is a large portion of the cases. The root cause is not always "the ref made a bad call".

I like 229's method (and many others') - that is how it should be. Ask for clarification or explanation from the head ref in a calm, professional manner, then accept it. How would you feel if someone got in your face telling you about what you did wrong? Right. So, don't expect a ref to respond very well to that.

If you think they made a truly incorrect call or are doing something blatantly against what a rule says, then ask if you can show them. They can say no, but if you're cool about it, they might listen to improve their reffing. There might be times where refs missed an update (should never happen, but has), so it might be helpful to point something out, in a calm manner. Just don't expect your match outcome to change.

Oh by the way, I say NO to replays. It would be cool for highlights, but shouldn't be used for deciding calls. That's not what FIRST is about.

[Freddy Schurr]

I agree that its a waste of time. I mean, "what happens on the field, stays on the field". It would take too much time up and everyone would just be complaining that the refs make a bad call.

[Stu Bloom]

NO !

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Stu Bloom

NO !

Yeah, what Stu said.