Consistency? What's that?

[Back In The Saddle]

A comment on another thread got me thinking about just what consistency in officiating really means.

A simplistic and inexperienced view might be that: "if exactly the same play happens x times, then exactly the same call is made x times." But we know that "exactly the same play" never happens twice.

Perhaps we have to take a less precise approach: "if x number of similar plays occur, the same call will be made x times." That, of course, opens up a whole discussion about what it means for plays to be "similar". It is possible for two plays that appear similar in many respects to differ in very small but important ways. It is possible for two plays that differ in several large and unimportant ways to be similar in one or more small and important ways. And how do we decide what are important and unimportant ways?

Does context matter to consistency? How much should age, skill, size, ability, mismatch, experience, score, "temperature", time on the clock, foul count, time of the season, and other factors matter to how we call the game? Do such factors only diminish consistency? Or does a proper understanding of consistency include adjusting for those factors?

Does it matter whose perception is involved? Is it valid to consider your partner's perception when evaluating your consistency? Is it valid to consider the players' and coaches' perception when evaluating your own consistency? Your evaluator's/supervisor's/assigner's? If you strongly disagree with one of these individual's perception of your consistency, does that constitute any kind of crisis of integrity on the official's part to consider their perspective, and perhaps even change?

If we cannot easily define what it means to be consistent from play to play and game to game, how can we expect to be consistent from official to official within a crew, and from crew to crew over a season.

What do you think? How do you define consistency?