Probably the best thing that happened to me my rookie year was one Saturday when I showed up for my youth games and my partner was a very experienced varsity ref (and evaluator). I was surprised to see him, but he explained that he often does a short stint on Saturdays to work the stiffness out.
Every timeout and intermission was a lesson for me. Why did we have a double whistle? Where was I watching? Next time report like.... It was great!
I talked about it to a board member of our association and finally this year they put in a plan "strongly encouraging" their senior officals to work at least one Saturday each month in youth ball with an inexperienced official.
They also started a mentoring program this year. Three times an evaluator will work a Frosh game with the mentee, then evaluate the mentee with a senior official during the JV game, then the mentor and senior official work the varsity game. The mentee is required to stay at least through the half-time discussions of the varsity game.
It really pays to find a quality association (like
http://www.home.ereferee.com/ncoa/)!
Fri Dec 08, 2000, 04:12pm
A Quality Association
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