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

Youth is often wasted on the young.
Of course, since the young haven't had time to make as many mistakes as I have, when being criticized, teased, or corrected, some haven't found the usefulness, security and comfort of saying, "Oops!"
mick

What does it really mean to be in the development program for the SEC?
Do you get games in one of the conferences or do you just get "invited $$$$" to the camps.

Mark Dexter, what school are you teaching at and what board are you going to work on this year?

Brandan,
I think it would be neat for my students to get your perspective. I don't know that it would be all that possible for you to come talk to them in person, but perhaps you have some articles, etc. that you have written about your experiences as a high school-aged official. I notice that you have been writing for officiating.com. Do you have anything that I might present to them and have them read? I could then lead a discussion about how it would be different to be an official as a high school student, how it might benefit you to have gotten such an early start, possible stereotypes, etc. Thanks for your help.
*As for the other 'debate', someone took a cheap shot, I fired back, and now we need to just move on. No harm, no foul...

Before we move on. I'm kinda interested in the answer to Tom's question. I don't believe that you answered him.

You said you were in the SEC development program? What exactly does that mean?

1) Are you a current member of the SEC staff?
2) How does the SEC track your development? Do they assign you games at the college level-- i.e. junior college, D1,2,3 etc- and evaluate your progress at those games?
3) What ongoing training is the SEC providing you with? Who is responsible for your training- an SEC staff member?
4) How does one qualify to become a member of the SEC development program? Are you scouted and then asked to join? Iow, what are the requirements and qualifications needed to enter the program?
5) Is there a certain experience level required before you would be entered--i.e. regular season varsity high school experience for a certain number of years, state high school play-off appointments,small college schedule, etc?
6) Does this program actually assign games to you? At what levels?

Not a cheap shot. Just trying to understand the program.

And besides, the sarcastic comments were directed at Brandan, not sleebo, anyway!

Hey - at least he can spell "SEC"!

OK - that was a cheap shot.

Quick! What's the number for 911?

I'm teaching back in Northeast Connecticut. For basketball, I'll be IAABO Board #8 (Eastern CT) and for football, Eastern Connecticut Football Association.

To answer the question:

You start at what they call the launching pad of the SEC camps which is IIOC. It is not about the money. You go there the first year, if you are good enough they will invite you back, and from there if they like you enough that year and last year they put you on scholarship and you go to these other places and ref more games. From there if you are good enough or they think you have potential, you get a contract by a conference in the SEC umbrella. From there you either climb the ladder or you don't.

This is how I have understood it. I could be wrong. I, like sleebo, am in the development program and hope to progress. Hopefully I can make it to the top along with sleebo.

#1)No
#2)They don't until you get college games
#3)I really don't know the answer to this one
#4)You just have to be seen by someone in the program. I got lucky, my mentor is an OVC official.
#5)No set amount of exp. required. We had a guy with us this year that was as green as you can come. Straight out of the box.
#6) They assign your college games.

Like I said earlier. I am just going on what I heard and how I percieved everything at camp. This might not be how it is.

You go there the first year, if you are good enough they will invite you back, and from there if they like you enough that year and last year they put you on scholarship and you go to these other places and ref more games.
[/B][/QUOTE]What exactly does the "scholarship" entail? Iow, what exactly do you receive as part of this scholarship?

What "other places" are you talking about? That's kinda confusing. They're sending you to these "other places" and it sounds like you're being assigned games there also, but I don't really know what that means. What level games are they assigning you to- MS,high school JV&Varsity,higher levels...? Are you being evaluated/trained/critiqued at these "other place" games?

What exactly does the "scholarship" entail? Iow, what exactly do you receive as part of this scholarship?

What "other places" are you talking about? That's kinda confusing. They're sending you to these "other places" and it sounds like you're being assigned games there also, but I don't really know what that means. What level games are they assigning you to- MS,high school JV&Varsity,higher levels...? Are you being evaluated/trained/critiqued at these "other place" games? [/B][/QUOTE]

By "other places" I mean officiating camps like one in Las Vegas that SEC is affiliated with. They have one in Orlando and one in Indiana. You're not being assigned games, you're working games for the camps and there are evaluators and instructors there.

As far as I could gather the scholarship entails the payment that it would cost to go to these camps.

1) Are you a current member of the SEC staff?
2) How does the SEC track your development? Do they assign you games at the college level-- i.e. junior college, D1,2,3 etc- and evaluate your progress at those games?
3) What ongoing training is the SEC providing you with? Who is responsible for your training- an SEC staff member?
4) How does one qualify to become a member of the SEC development program? Are you scouted and then asked to join? Iow, what are the requirements and qualifications needed to enter the program?
5) Is there a certain experience level required before you would be entered--i.e. regular season varsity high school experience for a certain number of years, state high school play-off appointments,small college schedule, etc?
6) Does this program actually assign games to you? At what levels?

1) No. One gets invited to an SEC camp (usually IIOC, but you could leap-frog to Orlando or Vegas, as a buddy of mine did). From there, you are evaluated for entry into the program. It is similar to most college gigs. You get a few games in a particular conference your first year. If you handle yourself well, your schedule will be a little nicer the next year and you may pick up another league or two. (There are about seven or eight conferences under the SEC umbrella, ranging from NAIA to D1) Over a period of time, you have the opportunity to work your way up. For instance, the guys who got picked up by the SEC this year and worked non-conference games for them have been in the program about 7 years or so. They started with NAIA ball such as the Peach Belt or Florida Sun and worked their way up through the A-Sun and OVC as well.
2) When you work in the conferences under the SEC umbrella, you will always end up on someone's game film and it will get back to Guthrie and the other supervisors. Also, the SEC has observers that show up unannounced to do evaluating.
3)We underwent extensive training at IIOC. We spent about four hours on the first night alone just going through a glossary of terms that the SEC and NBA use in talking about plays. Also, we watched a lot of game film at camp. Once you are working games in their conferences, there are weekly training tapes that must be watched at the game site by the crew as one means of pre-gaming. You are also expected to watch and break down every game tape that you are a part of.
4/5) One must be reccomended by someone who is already in the program. I am fortunate that I was something of a mentor to an individual and he got to know a current SEC official, who got him to an SEC camp. The next year (this summer) he passed the blessing on to me. So outside of the reccomendation, there are no qualifications for IIOC. Were they to put something in place in terms of an experience requirement, it would be a shame. If you disagree, look at folks like Leroy and Zach Zarba. Zach, for one, has not even been officiating for 10 years and he is in the NBA. That has a lot to do with the fact that Coach Guthrie gave him a shot when he did not have a lot of experience. Leroy (current NBA referee) did not have hardly any experience when he first went to a camp and caught the eye of Hank Nichols and some others. He was still pretty 'green' when he was brought to Coach Guthrie's attention as a prospect.
6) The SEC umbrella assigns games all the way from NAIA to DI. As all of us that went to IIOC this year, I am just hoping for a foot in the door and an invite back there next year.

Thanks for the information. I think I got it right now. It's sounds like it's pretty much the same as all of the other league summer camps around the country. They evaluate the campers and the ones that show some promise or catch someone's eye might get a further shot later on to show what they can do.

Good luck to both of you. Our avocation needs all of the good, young officials that it can get. At all levels.

Forgot to ask.

You said before that you were already in the program. Congratulations. What particular conference have they got you working in this year?

I will be working in the SCAC- it is an NCAA D3 conference. I am just pumped to have a foot in the door, really. Aside from that league, I will also be working in the KIAC, which is an NAIA conference that includes several schools from Kentucky.

D3 and NAIA......gotcha.

Thanks.

Yes, it is amazing.....

sleebo:

Congratulations!! I am so glad you got the chance. Now just make the best of it. Good Luck!

Thank you very much, RefTN. I plan to keep on working hard and I know you will do the same. Also, for those that read this from this particular forum and from other sports' forums as well, thank you for those who have been offering help and input for my class. I really appreciate it.

Officiating class @ local H.S.
 

congrats on your desire to teach our hardwood future, I have been officiating for a total of 17 years at the H.S. & College level, any assistance I can offer will be my pleasure. I have been in that position before and I know your future struggles.

D 2, D 3, NAIA ????
 

Just curious regarding levels of play back east. You made mention of D3 before NAIA as if it was higher. I know here in California we have the best NCAA D2 conference as well as NAIA conference in the nation and the NAIA play is better than D2, let alone D3. They average sending 4 teams a year to the 32 team national tournament. So it is just as prestigious to ref these games as it is to do the D2 games. I know being on a D2 officials roster might look better on a resume, but personally I prefer doing the NAIA games than any of the D2 or D3 games I do. Other than my D1 games it is the highest level of play and rivalries and crowd noise and intensity. How is ti in other parts of the country?