[drinkeii]

Welcome to the real world? I'm not going for sarcasm here - I'm raising what I consider to be a reasonable concern.

I would think that facilities and assignors would take the time to make sure they have reasonably qualified officials for the level of games that they are giving them - otherwise, it would seem to open up a can of worms in terms of liability. I'm not likely to act upon this presumed liability, but parents of my players might be so inclined.

I am in an unusual situation as a coach. Our school doesn't have athletics - we are an academic magnet high school, and we farm our kids out to other local schools for HS sports. The team(s) I coach are kids from our school, playing to get better, playing for fun, and playing to learn to work together as a team. These are the three goals I give them when we start. Win or lose, I don't care, and I make a point of this to the kids - I don't care if we get beat by 40... if they played a good game, I'm happy with them, and so far, have found that they are happy with themselves once they get over the fact that they lost. I just want them to get better - many of my players go on to play HS sports for another school. I am, however, concerned for their safety, and do expect that whatever league we sign up to play in, that it will be a concern of the facility and assignor as well. I don't believe this is an unresonable expectation.

I have always considered, as a official, my first responsibility is to the safety of the players. Second, to the rules, and third, to game flow. Many officials seem more concerned with game flow than safety. This seems to be a rather callous and inappropriate attitude. I understand there are inherent risks in the game, but there are inherent risks in everything we do in life - when there are people in place to help keep the participants safe, that should be their primary concern.

[Edited by drinkeii on Jul 3rd, 2005 at 01:26 AM]