Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am getting ready to start my first year of teaching at a high school. One of my classes (which miraculously, was already in place) is a Sports Officiating class. I would like to look at as many sports as possible in order to expose my students to a wide variety of opportunities. If you could, please contact me about ANY TRAINING MATERIALS WHATSOEVER that you might have which you would be willing to share with me. This includes electronic documents, paper documents (which I would gladly pay for you to have sent to me), and anything else that you might be willing to share. Thank you so much for your help in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience at [email protected]. I would be glad to supply you with other mailing information as needed.

Well, I think the best training material is this forum, but Brad's not paying me or anything. ;)

I'm starting teaching high school, too (although I will not, unfortunately, be teaching a reffing class), and I took a football officiating class in college.

My first recommendation is that you require everyone to get a copy of the relevant rulebook(s). There's no substitute to actually reading and learning the rules - particularly if this class is for academic credit.

As for training materials, I'd do a Google search for college intramural sports programs. At the least, most have 'dumbed-down' intramural rules, which may be a good place to start if your students have no sports/officiating experience whatsoever. (I know GWU's website - http://www.gwu.edu/~imsports - has these.) With some looking, I bet you could find some programs with guidelines/training suggestions listed.

One in-class or out-of-class activity that can be a good tool (especially for kids who are good athletes but new to reffing) is to have the students watch a game and focus on the reffing. In class, you could tape a game over the weekend, possibly edit it into key plays, then watch it in class and discuss different calls. You can use replay and slow-motion as much as you want, and let the kids use the rulebooks to find the correct answers. Alternatively, the students could be assigned to watch a game on their own (in person or on TV) and write a mini-report focusing on the officiating during the game.

Another thing I'd suggest is talking to officials you know, and seeing if the students can shadow them during games - probably no more than one or two students a game, though. Also, you could talk to the AD and see if he/she needs assistance with "hosting" refs at your school's athletic events - perhaps you could assign this on a rotating basis, or make it for extra credit.

Let me know if you need any (more) help, and I'd love to get ideas/see how this goes. If you want, you can e-mail me through the forum.

The teachers aren't going to think your one of the students?

I'm just kidding sallee. You are my boy, keep up the good work and good luck teaching the class. Try to make sure you use your voice sparingly I know how you get when you talk at a high level for a prolonged period of time. Remember Leroy said no excuses so you better suck it up.

Thank you all for the advice you have offered. And yes, I am going to get mistaken for students every day! Thanks for reminding me...

Don't forget to teach rule #1: Tuck your whistle in your shirt before you take a leak. :p

well put, Mr. Padgett :)

Why dont we have this class at my highschool? :(

In the Midwest, most people leave \'em.

Brandan, are you a high school student or in college? When did you start officiating?

I am currently a sophomore in High school. I am going on my second year of officiating. So, I started last year.

[Edited by brandan89 on Aug 5th, 2005 at 08:11 PM]

I guess they don\'t teach spelling until the junior year at your school. :D

Or the senior year in the......wait for it......SEC. :D

For what it\'s worth...I happen to have graduated from my university with a 4.0 GPA and I was recognized as the valedictorian of the College of Education. So, one might say that I learned to spell at some point. Furthermore, I am in the developmental program of the...wait for it...SEC. Amazing isn\'t it? Thanks for all of the help from those who have been so kind as to offer it in lieu of sarcastic comments.

Methinks that the developmental program of the....wait for it...SEC needs to teach some of their students how to develop a thick skin. And a sense of humor.

That chapter immediately followed how to reset the clock when handling a correctable error, but now that entire book has been scrapped. :D