Physical Fitness Test

[zebraman]

Yowzah... we're all a little fired up this week aren't we?

As far as my personal shape... I lift weights and do cardio 5-days a week year-round and am one of the most fit refs around. A physical fitness test would be to my benefit.

However, as former president of our assoc, I am also quite aware of the difficulty of retaining officials. I have found that the written test we all take is not threatening nor a "barrier" to retaining officials. It's open book and only requires a couple hours of studying to pass even for beginning officials.

However, a fitness test would be intimidating enough for some existing refs to hang up their black shoes or potential recruits to shy away. That would be a very bad thing for the game in these parts.

Our ratings system takes "the ability to keep up" into account and those who are out of shape fall way down in the ratings. Therefore they are given mainly lower-level games so it works out for everyone.

Z