Frustrated about ratings system and postseason assignment
 

I went to a clinic last night that was hosted by our state's officiating coordinators, assigners, etc. I got a lot of good stuff out of it, so I'm glad that I went but I was extremely frustrated with their decision to let coach/AD ratings factor "heavily" into their decision of how far officials go. They talked about how that is one of the biggest parts of how far you go in the post season. Literally the next point they made was don't be afraid to whack a coach (when discussing new warning situations). The officials' coordinator went on to say something to the tune of "I saw way too many instances where the coach went too far and should have just gotten a T." As a guy that's trying to work my way up, I don't feel like I have the rapport or reputation to speak up yet but I really wanted to ask them how in the world we are supposed to be able to have a spine with coaches when THEY are the ones who factor heavily into postseason decisions.

This seems idiotic to me. Either you want us to give them a long leash and they decide how far I go in the post season, or you take coach/AD ratings out of it and we are able to take care of business when we need to. ONE coach last year of the 30 games I worked turned in an eval and he gave me zeros on EVERY. SINGLE. THING. Including "wore proper uniform," "showed up at the game," and stupid things like that. I whacked him early in the game for jumping on the court and screaming at me. Then he wanted to talk about it, and I told him he had lost his right to ask me about that when he treated me like one of his players. So that one guy factored pretty heavily into my post season because most coaches don't go fill one out if you're good, and that annoys the crap out of me. Every time an official evaluator came out to watch me, I scored above 4.3 (out of 5), and not many partners I worked with last year had higher averages than me. It pisses me off that the guys that know what to look for are saying I do a good job and one derelict coach can ruin it for me.

I'll just keep working on improving my communication and try to ignore the fact that these two ideas don't seem to be able to coincide harmoniously. The reality of the situation is if I want to move on farther this year, I'm going to have to give a lot more leash and let coaches get away with a lot more than I do.

Is working an extra postseason game or two worth overlooking unsportsmanlike conduct for 50-60 other games?

The answer for me has always been.....no, it's not.


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If a coach deserves a T give it to him / her. That coach *might* give you a poorer rating, or s/he *might* realize that s/he deserved it. The other coach will *likely* rate you higher for taking care of business.

This is the rating sx Missouri has always used since I’ve been an official. It’s F’ng ludicrous the coaches have ANY say, let alone the only say. Our ratings are 100% coach based.

That being said, we have parameters for postseason but they are rarely followed. Ratings index, career length, number of varsity contests in that reg season etc. all of them get ignored during postseason. Sometimes bc of shortage of officials, but mostly due to politics.

I would rather have a mix of coach, peer, assignor, evaluator, assn and written test scores be the basis for a rating.


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Until you're able to do that, you're going to just have to be content to live within the confines of the mental boundaries you've created for yourself. I've been a member of several associations around the country, and there are none that make everyone happy when it comes to post-season assignments. When coaches have a say in who works their post season games, of course it causes a conflict of interest. But everyone is in the same pool - all you can control is what you can control. Observe the people who you respect and seem to have the respect of the "top" coaches and work far into the post season. See how they manage the game and the coaches and learn from them. Maybe request one of them as a mentor. If you really want to get to that level and these are the cards you've been dealt, you can get there by working on those game management skills just like you would any other part of your game.

Actually, if you enforce obvious rules, most coaches will respect you more than those that just turn a blind eye. For example, the coach that is always in the coaching box tends to like officials that will enforce the box when coaches are all over the court. Usually, they know these rules are not the ones you as the officials have made up. You just have to be right and you do not have to use the penalty to enforce those kinds of rules.

Bottom line, coaches will always have some say. They may not be the final say, but they have a say and should in many cases. The good coaches know who the good officials are. I would not worry about it any more than I worry about what a coach thinks of the job I do. I do what I feel is right and move on.

Peace

Agreed on all counts. As I said, I'll just do what I need to in order to try to keep getting better games and more post season assignments. It's just frustrating to see these things happen and not be able to speak up or do anything about it. Thanks for letting me vent and to those that have/will share their experience with this and how they deal with it.

I don't think it's unreasonable that coaches get some say in who they feel the "best" officials are. After all, they are the ones that have a stake in the game. Sometimes I don't think we as officials give them enough credit to be as fair as they can in their evaluations (I'd rather have coach ratings than peer ratings which is what we have in SC). What there needs to be is a "check and balance" to throw out the "extreme" ratings on the high and low end of the spectrum.

But a 100% coach-driven rating system? That might be more ludicrous than the system we have where I live.

Whatever that supervisor told the officials, it is probably a line that is used to make a point. I doubt the coaches actually pick the officials that deeply. I bet the officials are ranked and that is used by the supervisor as needed. I think sometimes we get caught up in certain things when those things are not as deep or as important as stated.

All systems have flaws. People always complain in our system and coaches ratings are a small part of what we do or how we are considered for postseason games. And one person does all the assigning and he or she can make all kinds of decisions and do based off of things that clearly have nothing to do with ratings.

Peace

This is a very good discussion. FWIW, I hate coach rating systems, but sometimes that's the only way to get a good evaluation sample size if there just aren't enough professional evaluators on the state staff. I would argue that coaches should be expected to submit evaluations for 'x'% of their games. That way, the coaches who don't meet that minimum would have their evaluations removed. And/or....you could exclude coach evaluations whose season averages are > one standard deviation above or below the mean. That way, the guys who always put "5" and the guys who always put "0" are not factored.

I kind of like the approach Rich took. If you stop caring about post-season assignments, you have the freedom to call your regular season games without looking over your shoulder so much. That's very liberating. Worked for me last year as a new guy in a new state when I knew I wasn't going to even sniff the post-season. When I saw a few of my buddies drive 150 miles to work a 1/16 first round blowout with a final score of 76-13 and a paycheck of about $15 more than a regular season game, I realized the Friday night conference rivalry nutcutter I had back in January was a heck of a lot more exciting to officiate.

It is true that no rating system is perfect. In an ideal world there would be no rating systems and it would be all evaluation-based, but the nature of high school basketball is that there are too many officials, too many schools, and not enough money to send an observer to every game. So in order for there to be at least some attempt at objectivity, that's where rating systems come in.

You could live in South Carolina, where your on-court ability means (literally) nothing for advancement.

25% statewide exam score (closed book, everyone takes in Columbia)
25% peer ratings
25% experience points (5% per year until maxed out after 5 years)
20% administrative (combination of meeting attendance, clinic participation, camp once every three years)
5% cooperation (lose points for turnbacks, etc.)

Most officials, in my experience, don't take the peer ratings seriously (we rate 1-10 in six different categories) and will give every partner a 9 or 10. Most officials receive all the other 50 points. What that leads to is the fact that the statewide exam is basically what determines your position in the rankings. An exam, not your on-court ability, determines where you're ranked as an official.

All varsity games, regular season and postseason, statewide are assigned centrally using the ranking list computed by this formula. There are officials at the top who have no business calling a varsity game and officials in the middle of the pack who are good enough to work state finals. Typically that's because the former group consists of good test-takers and officials whose only redeeming quality is knowing the rules really well.

All this to say, trust me when I say that every system has its flaws.

At least in Missouri the coaches have to rate you, which balances things out at least some of the time. The way the OP described it, their coaches only put in a rating if they are upset with the job you did.

That's been my experience. I've gotten two evaluations in the past two seasons. Not two per season. Two total. Both of them did the same thing and gave me every negative rating they possibly could including some of the crazy ones that are obviously not true. That's my problem with it. Require them to rate us like we are required to do sportsmanship ratings (that don't even get used), or don't take them into consideration.

Then that is the problem. The officials have it within their power to do the right thing but are not doing it. Can't blame the system when the system isn't used.

Are those ratings sufficiently anonymous so that an official could give an honest rating without fear of retaliation? It would have to be such that the scores would only become available to the officials after a large number were collected and the system closes.

My Little Corner Of Connecticut ...
 

Regular season game (and league or conference postseason games) assignments are based on ratings by a trained observation team supplemented by peer ratings. Each official is rating either varsity or subvarsity and the number of regular season game assignments is based on the discretion of the assignment commissioner, who does a great job.

State tournament games are solely based on coaches votes. The more votes an officials gets, the further that official goes into the tournament. Connecticut has been doing it this way for tournament games for at least forty years, and believe it or not, coaches usually do a pretty good job of selecting the best officials. Every year I look at the tournament list of the thirty-plus officials selected from my local board for the state tournament and only have to scratch my head for one or two of the selected officials, and they're usually gone by the end of the first round.

The only thing worse than not having a rating system for officials is having a rating system for officials.

Here is our system and it is simple. We as officials control 4 categories for the most part.
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The percentiles for the Top 15 and Ratings used to be things determined by officials as well. Every official's association used to have a Top 15 list, but they took that away a few years ago. Each Certified officials used to also be able to rate officials for varsity contests, but now that is also no longer the case. But just about every category you could control. And there are many other things considered outside of the Power Rating that was considered. I had 35 points last year and did not work the State Finals. There is a policy to not work more than 2 years in a row and then you take a year off. Even if my rating was that high again, I will not likely get back to a State Final. Geography, years of experience, what kind of games you work can all be considered along with many other things. I think people worry too much about things they ultimately cannot control.

Peace

I think a good way to chose post season officials is to do it while all stakeholders are sitting at the same table. AD's and coaches can all sit in the same room and pick from the pool of available officials. Coaches or AD's can nominate who they feel are the best and any objections should be discussed. The minutes of that meeting should be made available to the officials. Objections should be noted in detail so the official can use the feedback to get better.

I think doing it in a open forum will eliminate some of the politics.

Evaluations from coaches are not a bad thing but I would not allow them in the decision process to chose post season assignments. I would welcome feedback anyway I can get it.

I do not mind getting ratings from coaches, but not an evaluation. They know nothing or not enough about officiating as much as I or most of us would know little to nothing about actual coaching. We know coaches do not like officials for some silly reason or for following the rules, so why would I want to know what a coach thinks of me that I have little or no respect for?

And your suggestion would still be political. It would make people realize who does not like them either way and likely be seen as held against one or the other. Then if we had a coach that was on the record not valuing our ability, then anything we did with them moving forward would be held against us even if we did not really care or pay attention. There is a reason politicians have closed-door meetings about policy. The public knowing how the sausage is made only would cause a problem in many cases for the person making the comments or the result to be accepted.

Ratings are fine but do not tell me that a coach knows when I should rotate or who actually should have made a call or not. They often think we are all looking at the same play when we clearly are not.

Peace

I think good officials are appreciated by terrible coaches in most cases.

I didn't say it would eliminate politics. I feel it would eliminate some of the politics but not all of it. The open meeting would hopefully detour a coach or AD from being unfair.

I never said it should be a mandatory thing or part of a selection process but I would appreciate certain feedback from coaches if done in a proper way. For example, did I show a high level of decisiveness? Did I communicate with participants effectively? Did I maintain professional control during the contest? Was I aggressive or overbearing?

Evaluations regarding my application and understanding of the rules should maybe be left up to our peers.

It was just a thought. But anyway.

Politics
 

Don't worry about a vote, may be we should vote on if a coach should be in post season! The better officials may not be available or can't get off from their jobs. It is a nice honor if done the correct way. Some times it is just plain ole' politics!

And they would avoid the situation by not saying their feelings on the record.

The point I was making that even in your suggestion you still would have a major flaw. All systems have flaws that someone, somewhere is not going to like or respect and that even your concern would have a way around what you were looking for. Which goes back to my original point, no matter what they come up with, someone is going to not be happy. We have to control what we can control and not worry about much else. Often in my experience, people do not accept the obvious. Because even if a coach shared exactly what they thought of you in their rating, people would claim they were not being fair. I know when clinicians tell officials why they are not advancing or why they need to do better, guys/gals get defensive.

There is more to what we do than rules and application of rules. We used to have the same kind of feedback from coaches and they took it away because it was clearly was not helpful to anyone. All it did was piss off officials because some coach would complain about some mechanics and the coaches clearly have no idea what our mechanics entail.

Peace

Everyone in SC wants to do away with the peer ratings, including myself. The problem is no alternative solution can gain enough traction.

They're done through Arbiter for all varsity games. We have six categories where we rate each of our partners on a scale of 1-10 (10 is the best). If you rate below an 8 in any category you have to provide a comment (though theoretically you could just put a dash in the comment box and the system would allow you to submit it). The average score and any comments written about an official are made public to officials shortly after the season ends. You cannot see how you were rated by partner, by game, or who wrote the comment–only the season average score and the comments themselves. The average score is multiplied by 2.5 and applied to your overall rating for the following season.

That is pretty obvious. My comment didn't limit the feedback from our peers to that subject only but take it away from coaches.

I think one of the more insane things that goes on is the top 15 vote for officials of your association when your only contact with those other officials is if you are their crew, or at clinics and meetings. Varsity games here are pretty much assigned to a crew instead of random assignments and you dont work with anyone else except maybe one or two other guys outside the crew and whoever you get paired with in tournaments.