new ref about to get started

[totalnewbie]

thanks everyone for the advice.

goose, i appreciate your comments. I'm a DA so I am used to getting yelled at by judges. I can handle getting yelled at. Fans cant be much worse. Losing my cool shouldnt be an issue. I'll let you know when I do my first game, though

Right now I am just trying to soak stuff up. "Open Ears, Closed Mouth". Heck, I'm doing more talking here in asking for advice than I have to any officials in my area (other than a few mentors). The good thing about being a newbie is I know that I know nothing.

I've got a buddy and he and I are quizzing each other on rules. Next week we'll start trying to get the whole call, from whistle to stop clock to signal to indication to report, etc. I'm putting my whole Type A personality into really digging into it. The advice that the three things I can control are rules, appearance and attitude makes a lot of sense to me.

The first association meeting was cool. Looks like about 200+ officials. We use the CBOA materials, apparently, to teach new officials to ref. Our meetings are every monday and the exam is 11/8.

Thanks again and please keep the advice coming. It seems that lots of people are saying "pick one or two things to work on." Any suggestions on what those first few things should be?

We are 3 man at Varsity and 2 man below that. I guess I will be getting freshman girls and boys games to start, which are two man. Any suggestions on things to start with on two man mechanics?

How about partners? What is the best way for a newbie to deal with his first partners?

Clark

[Edited by totalnewbie on Oct 27th, 2004 at 01:31 AM]