For years, our local high school official's assocations (both boys and girls) have often had coaches (we rotate to get a different one each time) come to some of our meetings and give talks. We leave it pretty open-ended as to what they can talk about. The talks have always been real positive and seem to help communication between coaches and officials. They generally express an appreciation for how hard we work and then give their take on things they have seen in officials that they like (open communication etc.) as well as some of their frustrations. It's never deteriorated into a complaint session nor has a coach ever used it to try to get us to call games "certain ways." Our members have always thought these meetings are great and the coaches always appreciate the opportunity as well. I have even noticed that some of our more "intense" coaches have actually become much better behaved after they've attended one of our meetings and had the opportunity to see that we talk about rules and scenarios to improve rather than just plotting and scheming against the coaches. :-)
However (you knew that was coming), this year we seem to have a problem. One coach protested that we are establishing a relationship with the coach who attends by doing this and it's unfair. Since I am our association president, I called the A.D. at his school to try to work things out. I offered to invite ALL coaches next year, but the A.D. said that not all would be able to attend so that's unfair. His concern seemed to be that we had invited the coach to a meeting DURING the season so I offered to invite a coach to one of our pre-season meetings instead. The A.D. still maintained that it would be unfair since not all coaches would be able to attend.
Do your local associations invite coaches to speak at your meetings? Has it ever been a problem? Are we indeed being unfair?
Thanks in advance,
Z
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