Improving Officiating at FIRST Events

[Corey Balint]

I said it once before and I'll say it again. They need to make a video showing certain situations that violate rules and ones that do not. While you can not cover all situations, if you get enough situationsout there, most refs will be able to follow what the rules are intended for accurately.

And Elgin. I love that idea. A lot of people tend to ignore what the announcer says after a match (no offense announcers, many people are not paying attention at that point because they are doing other things/the music is too loud to hear you.) It should just be the Ref's voice only stating why it happened.

[Michael Corsetto]

I agree that making the penalties called in any given match announced to the public, and to the teams competing more specifically, is important. I remember back in 2005 at the Silicon Valley Regional when one of the dreaded 30 point penalties was called against an alliance going up against 254 and company in the finals. It was a close call for whatever reason (I can't remember the details, I'm pretty sure there is a thread somewhere on CD about it) but the crowd was very upset with call, even booing. Probably one of the biggest displays of negativity at a FIRST event could have been avoided if the penalty was clearly announced to the crowd and all controversiality regarding the call explained.

Also, as driver for my last 2 years on team 114, and human player the two years before that, we made a point of walking into the challenge square, or whatever its called, not to argue penalties, but just to find out what we did. I even remember waiting in line once or twice to talk to the head ref. Simply announcing the penalties would alleviate this problem and make for a smoother event.

In any case, thank you ref's, and all of the other volunteers, for making FIRST possible. I hope improvement can be made, just have they have been (penalty flags, yellow cards, etc.), since I will probably be refereeing next year

Mike C.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Corey Balint

I said it once before and I'll say it again. They need to make a video showing certain situations that violate rules and ones that do not. While you can not cover all situations, if you get enough situationsout there, most refs will be able to follow what the rules are intended for accurately.

I hear you. I think I said something like that too.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Corey Balint

I said it once before and I'll say it again. They need to make a video showing certain situations that violate rules and ones that do not. While you can not cover all situations, if you get enough situationsout there, most refs will be able to follow what the rules are intended for accurately.

Where are you going to shoot this video, about 3-4 weeks before ship? Gonna use the animation or the people-bots from Kickoff?

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

For my part, I promise that I'll be nicer in Tacoma than I was in Portland.

You better be nicer or there just might be mistakes in scoring!

[efoote868]

I for one would like to thank the referees at St. Louis for doing a great job. I referee soccer myself, and I understand the pressures involved in refereeing. I had a couple incidents where I had to speak with the head ref, and he was very understanding, and agreeable. There was another instance where I had to talk to another ref, and once again, the communication was there, and we were able to work through it.

Advice for talking to referees: Be patient, and agreeable. You arguing will never get them to change a call, and in all instances whats done is done. The only thing you can hope for is that in the future the refs will call it your way, or you can avoid whatever the situation was that initiated the call.

Also, know the rules. What eats me alive is when someone argues with a ref, but has absolutely no clue what the rules are.

[Corey Balint]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Where are you going to shoot this video, about 3-4 weeks before ship? Gonna use the animation or the people-bots from Kickoff?

Basically you can either do an animation or people bots. Doesn't really matter. And you make it to be released coinciding with the manual.

[Shankar M]

I can see both sides of this argument. Referees are human, and if there is one thing we can guarantee, it is the fact that we humans do have a tendency to err. Of course, the other side has just as much validity to their case. For a team to pony up $6,000 to attend a regional competition is no mean feat. For them to fork up that kind of money to be the test subjects at the first competition of the year, particularly if it is also their last competition of the year, is definitely a tough pill to swallow.

This is not a new point of discussion. This issue has been a popular (or not-so-popular) topic for the past few years that I've been around to witness FIRST events (and likely long before then as well).

However, something that is new this year, is a FIRST "unofficial" regional during the competition season: the Kettering FRC District Rookie Competition. I imagine that the main goal of this event, after giving some of the lower budget teams a shot at attending a second event, is to give rookie teams a taste of the FIRST atmosphere; to learn what things are like.

One of the interesting things I saw mentioned in the event's description was that the event will be "played on a regulation 2008 FIRST field with all 2008 game rules in effect." Now I understand this is a pilot project, but could there lie some potential to improving officiating through an event like this? If this were an event that was held as, perhaps, a pre-season competition, wouldn't that give everyone the chance to do some learning?

The rookies attending would get a head start on understanding the atmosphere and environment of FIRST. Teams that do not attend would be able to get a feel for the game and understand what it is like. (I have always liked figuring this kind of stuff out first hand, but there is only so much you can take away from a webcast, so I think a lot of the figure-it-out-for-yourself mentality is preserved). Perhaps, most importantly, this kind of event would allow referees to see how certain elements of the rulebook will play out. Following the competition, approaches to the game could be revisited, rules could be tweaked, and event video (a popular suggestion for how to "train" referees) could be circulated to "regular" season competitions. These clips could then be used by event coordinators and head referees to better prepare the referees at their event for the task at hand.

[thefro526]

Now that we have seen almost (if not) 20 regionals it seems like there are major call inconsistencies in the officiating at regional. I think that there needs to be a massive ref meeting in the next week or two to get the rules clarified. I know the refs jobs are hard but there has to be a better way to educate everyone on the rules

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Now that we have seen almost (if not) 20 regionals it seems like there are major call inconsistencies in the officiating at regional. I think that there needs to be a massive ref meeting in the next week or two to get the rules clarified. I know the refs jobs are hard but there has to be a better way to educate everyone on the rules

And how do you know whether or not that happens now? Not a face-to-face meeting - would you like your fees raised a few hundred per regional so the refs could be flown across the country to a meeting? But there are conference calls that go on for all aspects of the game - inspection, queuing, reffing, etc.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

And how do you know whether or not that happens now? Not a face-to-face meeting - would you like your fees raised a few hundred per regional so the refs could be flown across the country to a meeting?

YES.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

YES.

2nd-ed

[Ben Mitchell]

I agree completely with the original poster.

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

YES.

Yee-haww!! Where do I sign up?


We are already paying a lot for the competition and our robot and stuff. I bet if a team had to fork over an extra $25 dollars ($37575 this year for the 1503 teams), I don't think many would mind because at least they would have peace of mind that the officiating would be more consistent.

[Danny McC]

I think it would be for the embetterment of the game experience for the students. If it only cost a few hundered dollars to get the refs to a massive rules meeting I would pay it out of my own pocket.