Regional-specific rules, etc., and do the referees read the rules?

[Kit Gerhart]

I don't want to be un-gracious and un-professional , but at a regional we recently attended, there was an, uh, curious lack of knowledge of the the rules demonstrated by the officials, and there was at least one "new" rule added for the competition in question.

On the Friday, there were essentially no loading zone interference penalties called. You could drive into a robot collecting tetras from either the HP or auto loading zone, and not receive a penalty. Later in the event, some such penalties were given (in one case to the wrong alliance), but in the quarter final round, 10 point penalties were given for LZ interference rather than the 30 points specified in the rules. Did even the head referee read the rules?

Then, there was the "special rule." The coaches were not allowed to cross the "starting line," even after the end of the autonomous portion of the match. Very interesting.

I guess my point is this. Is there a system for assuring that head referees know the rules? Are there any guidelines for training the sometimes inexperienced "associate" referees? When I was a referee at the Championship in '03, I was very familiar with the rules and the game, but the head referee had a very useful meeting with the rest of us going over the specifics of what a referee needed to look for during matches. Apparently that didn't happen at the event I recently attended.

We all know that referees are volunteers and we appreciate their work, but it appears that there needs to be a better system for making sure they are prepared to perform their important service to the teams.