Quote:
Originally posted by d1ref2b
I am a veteran member of a FL association, that has a declining number of members. We need to honestly evaluate our officials without making them angry and causing them to quit. It the past our evaluation system has been such to not hurt feelings. This does not help anyone get better.
I would appreciate any input on what other associations are doing to honestly evaluate it officials.
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I have received a number of, shall we say, "Less Than Stellar" evaluations, and I tend to be a little emotional and touchy. Here's how my association has kept me around, and avoided hurting my feelings.
1) All evals are strictly private. Strictly. No one knows what's in them except me and the person who wrote them, and the commissioner. No scores, ratings or values are released to anyone at any time (except the voting for state tournaments).
2) Game assignment lists aren't available to most of us. In order to find out who's doing the best you have to show up at the best games and see who's there.
3) When evaluators have needed to say things that could be hard to hear, they have been careful and tried to stay non-judgmental. "I think you could have skipped that call." "You need to run a little faster, and stay ahead of the play (that was 7th grade girls!)" "Another year or two under your belt is going to make a big difference in your self-confidence." "Go over section 2.10 again -- you're still a little hazy on the fine points."
4) They let the commissioner be the fall guy. "Well, regardless of what you and I may want, Howard won't give you the best games if you don't do it his way."
5) When people complain and say they should be getting better games, an evaluator is sent out to watch and then goes over the eval afterwards so the person really knows what needs work. Remember, this is private.
6) Howard NEVER agrees with a coach, parent or fan against a ref, and everyone knows it. He may get pretty cagey about what he says, and he may be pretty firm with a ref after the complainant is gone, but he never turns on us. We KNOW we will never be belittled by anyone whose opinion matters, no matter how lousy we are. That's worth a lot in my book.