Quote:
Originally posted by nvfoa15
Mike,
At first glance, my response to you would be to quickly, quietly, and politely get rid of this official. This "I just want to work the games" attitude, IMO, would foster the Derock mentality.
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This was my first thought, too. I'm afraid he is one of those officials who just dusts of the rulebooks to take the yearly test and then puts it away.
However, after pondering your question, I have several of my own come to mind. I was particulary interested in the fact that your crew will meet four times for two hours before the season starts. Do you and your crew belong to an association that conducts training meetings?
Our area has an officials association but membership is not mandatory and attendance is not required. This particular official has been to one or two association meeting in three years. The meetings are helpful to new officials but often cover very basic things.
If so are you duplicating their efforts.
See above. This guy doesn't go to the officials association meetings because they are not required.
I would immagine that your state requires attendence to a yearly clinic (Virginia, where I live, does) in which the new rules and interpretations are presented; are you duplicating that effort?
Illinois requires a clinic once every three years and a rule interpretation meeting every year. The rules meetings only last about an hour to an hour-and-a-half. The clinics are helpful but they are only required every three years.
My crew will meet once during the off season. It will be a cook out affair with the wives/significant others invited. We will meet for acouple of hours going over the information I got from the crew chiefs meeting. I also sent my crew rules quizzes that they could complete on their own time - we will discuss them also. We will discuss my expectations for the upcoming season and what I (and they) think we need to improve on. This year our meeting might run a little longer because of the significant rules changes made by the NF (PSK, etc).
If you are not duplicating the efforts of your local and state associations, if these meeting are your only means of preparing your crew for the new season; then, by all means, find a new crew member.
I don't feel I was duplicating any effort on the part of my official's association or the state assocation. The officials association only meets during the season and this guy wasn't going anyway. The state association requirements are not what I would call stringent.
After reading some of the replies and kind of knowing this guy, I sent an email to my entire crew with some options. The options were.
1. Meet once a month for the two hours with an occassional absence (this guy has yet to make a meeting this year).
2. Commit to getting into the rulebook once a day for 10 minutes or at least 1 hour per
week.
3. Replace me.
4. Try to get on another crew.
He chose option #4
