[UNIgiantslayers]

I went to a clinic last night that was hosted by our state's officiating coordinators, assigners, etc. I got a lot of good stuff out of it, so I'm glad that I went but I was extremely frustrated with their decision to let coach/AD ratings factor "heavily" into their decision of how far officials go. They talked about how that is one of the biggest parts of how far you go in the post season. Literally the next point they made was don't be afraid to whack a coach (when discussing new warning situations). The officials' coordinator went on to say something to the tune of "I saw way too many instances where the coach went too far and should have just gotten a T." As a guy that's trying to work my way up, I don't feel like I have the rapport or reputation to speak up yet but I really wanted to ask them how in the world we are supposed to be able to have a spine with coaches when THEY are the ones who factor heavily into postseason decisions.

This seems idiotic to me. Either you want us to give them a long leash and they decide how far I go in the post season, or you take coach/AD ratings out of it and we are able to take care of business when we need to. ONE coach last year of the 30 games I worked turned in an eval and he gave me zeros on EVERY. SINGLE. THING. Including "wore proper uniform," "showed up at the game," and stupid things like that. I whacked him early in the game for jumping on the court and screaming at me. Then he wanted to talk about it, and I told him he had lost his right to ask me about that when he treated me like one of his players. So that one guy factored pretty heavily into my post season because most coaches don't go fill one out if you're good, and that annoys the crap out of me. Every time an official evaluator came out to watch me, I scored above 4.3 (out of 5), and not many partners I worked with last year had higher averages than me. It pisses me off that the guys that know what to look for are saying I do a good job and one derelict coach can ruin it for me.

I'll just keep working on improving my communication and try to ignore the fact that these two ideas don't seem to be able to coincide harmoniously. The reality of the situation is if I want to move on farther this year, I'm going to have to give a lot more leash and let coaches get away with a lot more than I do.