Curie Semifinal 1 - 3, what happened?

[Liz Smith]

Originally Posted by Joel J.

Are you saying the refs are well qualified, and thus their rulings are just.. or are you raising a question as to what it takes for a ref to be well-qualified, given that there were a consistent (ly high) number of bad rulings across the divisions?

How many mistakes before THE question can be raised?

Honestly, these referees especially at the Championship are not just people they find last minute roaming th Georgia Dome. I consider myself pretty active within FIRST, and in the referee meeting Thursday afternoon I pretty much felt out of place without a 5 or 10 year volunteer pin on my shirt. As stated before, there were at least 11 regional head referees on the floor of the Dome distributed on each of the fields. The referees watch and analyze every single match of each event they attend. With a lot of the referees at the championship officiating at more than regional, by the time they get to the Georgia Dome, I think it makes them pretty well qualified. I think a lot of people are thinking of the referees in the wrong light. They make up part of the FIRST community just as the students, and the mentors and everyone else does.