Evaluating referees

[SMEngmann]

AZ, I belong to Coach41's association which has a similar evaluation system to the one I demoed on your site. The problem I have with both systems is that both try to be so inclusive in their categories that you get bogged down in minutia. There are some 30 or so categories to score, so an evaluator cannot do a good job evaluating each of them, and others simply require little/no thought. When an assignor is looking at this evaluation, he/she could easily lose the forest for the trees by simply seeing a wave of numbers, some of which are more important than others.

My second point, and there will probably be disagreement, is that I don't think judgement should be listed as a category for evaluation. Judgement is a subjective category and there's no way of quantifying that simply with a numberical or descriptive grade. Many aspects of "judgement" cannot possibly be taken into account by an observer because the observer doesn't have the whole picture. We can measure definitively whether an official was in the proper position to make a decision, whether that official is believable and effective with his/her mechanics and what type of demeanor the official projects when on the court, but there is no way, without getting inside the official's head, you can measure judgement. Further, it is not fair, without the benefit of reviewing the tape with the official, ideally, to determine whether that official simply missed calls, or has good or bad judgement. There's no way you can evaluate judgement without knowing what specifically that official saw or without knowing the context of a situation.

I do want to differentiate between judgement and other aspects that are measureable, or can be evaluated. For instance, game management, including bench, table and players can be observed without questioning judgement. How did the decisions this official make pan out? What could he have done differently? Also, foul selection is another measurable. Is the official calling obvious fouls? Is the official calling things that aren't there or looking for "stuff" to call? All of that can fall under a game management category, and comments on it would be, in my opinion, very valuable. But rating and questioning judgement is, in my opinion, the wrong way to go. Focus primarily of positioning and mechanics, and keep it short and simple (unlike this post )