Comfort

[Terrapins Fan]

Originally Posted by DRJ1960

The question I have is this; is "comfort" a matter of personalities or of competence? ... Occasionally I work with someone I don't trust to get the job done when the pressure is on...which makes me uncomfortable. I couldn't care less about your personality.

For me, it's actually personalities. I would say the vast majority of our officials are very competent. I am the Secretary of the Board and we take 4 test per year we take National Federation part 1 for the state of Maryland and for the state of West Virginia we take Part 1 & 2, we also take the IAABO test.

I see everyone's scores. So I know as a board we know the rules and generally speaking we apply them well. But I also hear in the executive meeting how officials are critiqued. I got into this when I was 44 years old. I am now 60. So it's not like I am 35 or 40 years old with 15 years of experience.

I believe that most officials do everything they can do to groom and help younger officials. But there are a few who don't want younger officials getting better than they are so they don't help and they do cut down younger officials.

These are the guys that I'm not as comfortable working with. My first Varsity game I worked with a couple of these guys and they said to me, if you blow a call it's on you we're not going to bail you out. we're not going to make a call in your area if you miss it. You're on your own.

I have never said that to another official, I have said that if you see something in my area that I definitely missed, come in late and get it. I'd rather have the call right than for us to miss it in front of everybody. Maybe this explains my feelings a little bit better.