Violence towards officials---data managment survey.

[kristal_15]

Hi there fellow officials...

My name is Kristal and I am a 18 yrs old basketball official from Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. I am currently taking a data management class in my last year of high school which means that I must create a survey, then present my findings to the class as an exam. This is worth 30% of my final mark.

With that said, I have decided to focus my project on 'Abuse Towards Officials'.

Unfortunately, I do live in a smaller town. This means that even if I do question every member of our local board...I will only finish with about 30 officials who have completed my survey - Needless to say, it is hard to make a my point with such a small number of responses.

This is were I need help:

If anybody would be willing to take 10 minutes out of their time to fill out this survey for me....it would be VERY much appreciated. Ideally, I would like to get another 20 + people so that I may make a justified conclusion.

The survey will be included in this message, if you could please send the completed survey to my email, with the subject 'Referee Survey', it would be appreciated.

Also, if you have any comments or personal experiences you would like to add, in addition to the survey...feel free to do so.

My email is: [email protected]

All your answers will be completely confidential. Your name will not be included.

Thank you so much in advance!
Kristal

__________________________

Survey

Abuse Towards Officials

Circle the answer that applies to you.

1. Age:

2. Sex:

3. Location:

4. How long have you been officiating basketball?

A. 1-3 yrs B. 4 - 5 yrs

C. 6-9 yrs D.10 + yrs


5. Which level(s) have you officiated? (write all that apply)


6. Have you ever officiated a sport, other than basketball?


7. If you answered YES to #6, which sport(s)?


8. Do you enjoy officiating sports? Y/N


9. In your opinion, do you believe that there is a problem regarding disrespect or abuse towards officials? Y/N


10. How do you define 'abuse' as a sport official?


11. Have you ever felt threatened, as an official, before, during or after officiating a game? Y/N


12. Have you ever been verbally abused before, during, or after officiating? Y/N


13. Have you ever been physically abused before, during or after officiating? Y/N


14. Do you feel that there are adequate safety measures in place protecting you as an official? Y/N


15. Do you believe that the rules & regulations stated in the NFHS rulebook offer appropriate measure to deal with abuse towards you, as an official? Y/N


16. Have you ever considered quitting sports officiating?
Y/N


17. If you answered YES to question # 13, Why?


Comments:

[crazy voyager]

1. Would you like answers from FIBA refs to? CAuse then I'll do this

2. Could you show the results when you're done? It would be intresting to see, cause I know there's been problems, but then FIBA gave out "orders" about enforcing rules of T's harder, and that made all coaches and players calm down, dunno about the crowd though :P

[tjones1]

Just sent you a message. Hope it helps, good luck with your project.

[kristal_15]

Originally posted by crazy voyager
1. Would you like answers from FIBA refs to? CAuse then I'll do this

2. Could you show the results when you're done? It would be intresting to see, cause I know there's been problems, but then FIBA gave out "orders" about enforcing rules of T's harder, and that made all coaches and players calm down, dunno about the crowd though :P

Sure...I wouldn't mind at all. If you guys would be interested, I would love to post the results.

[Oz Referee]

Just emailed you my survey.

Hope it helps!

[rainmaker]

Quick note:

Your question #17 asks "why" with regard to question #13. I think it should be with regard to #16, eh?

[kristal_15]

You're absolutly right, I guess that's what happens when too many ideas come to mind and you just keep adding and adding. Thanks alot for seeing that, I'll change it as soon as possible

[w_sohl]

Survey

Abuse Towards Officials

Circle the answer that applies to you.

1. Age: 30

2. Sex: Male

3. Location: Southern Indiana (Evansville)

4. How long have you been officiating basketball? 10 + yrs


5. Which level(s) have you officiated? (write all that apply)

Jr. High (B&G), High School (B&G underclass & Varsity), Junior College Summer Ball

6. Have you ever officiated a sport, other than basketball?

Yes

7. If you answered YES to #6, which sport(s)?

Football and Baseball

8. Do you enjoy officiating sports? Y/N

Yes

9. In your opinion, do you believe that there is a problem regarding disrespect or abuse towards officials? Y/N

Yes

10. How do you define 'abuse' as a sport official?

Threats of physical harm or threatening pulling games from your schedule becuase of a disagreement in a call.

11. Have you ever felt threatened, as an official, before, during or after officiating a game? Y/N

Yes

12. Have you ever been verbally abused before, during, or after officiating? Y/N

Yes

13. Have you ever been physically abused before, during or after officiating? Y/N

No, but I did have people waiting outside the gym for me after an intramural game once, had to leave through the back.

14. Do you feel that there are adequate safety measures in place protecting you as an official? Y/N

No

15. Do you believe that the rules & regulations stated in the NFHS rulebook offer appropriate measure to deal with abuse towards you, as an official? Y/N

Maybe, but it really isn't the NFHS that has the appropriate measures, it is local law enforcement.

16. Have you ever considered quitting sports officiating?
Y/N

Yes

17. If you answered YES to question # 13, Why?

Baseball - The parents at baseball games are the worst, the younger the kids the worse it gets.

Football - I have stopped doing little kid football because the parents do not care about teaching their kids how to play the game, all they care about is winning. I even had a league president argue with about a call because he had something to do with that particular team, he threw (figuratively) the league president card at me.

Comments:
If parents continue to badger officials the way they do the officiating is going to keep getting worse and worse. 15, 16, 17 and 18 year old kids do not want to, and shouldn't have to, put up with the crap that parents and coaches, at the levels that some of these kids call, give these kids that are LEARNING how to properly officiate their game. We had a guy in our football association quit after one game because of the coaches in the game, said it wasn't worth the money to hear the crap that came out of coaches and parents mouths during games, it was a freshman (9th grade) football game. As these potential candidates for officiating continue to quit and the veterans retire we will not have enough officials calling games and we will need to bring in inexperienced officials to call varsity contests and they will not be ready to deal with that atmosphere, they will get rattled and their judgement and concentration will be affected.

[TimTaylor]

Email on it's way.

FYI, the increasing trend of attacks on officials is something that NASO has been very active in trying to address. You might check their web page for info.......

[Snake~eyes]

Originally posted by kristal_15

Sure...I wouldn't mind at all. If you guys would be interested, I would love to post the results.

Sent mine.
Would definitely be interested in the results.