As one of the relative "newbies", I certainly appreciate when a senior official helps "in the right way." I have one guy who I just love working with as he gives great pointers and critiques.

I have also worked with several Sr Refs, who "think they're all that" who have no idea how to give constructive criticism, coach, and mentor jr officials......and no one has ever mentored them on their numeorus bad habits or game knowledge - I certainly don't......yet.

As GEN Colin Powell once said after the first Gulf War, "Even Saddam Hussien has value.....he can always be used as a bad example."

I certainly point "new officials" to this Forum. Even for those of us who don't write in much, there is lots to learn here.

cough cough

sorry, what again?

Funny you mention that, we have a woman in our association that was getting FR/JV games. She was never on high visibilty games or varsity games. She was starting to feel "is there something wrong with my officiating complex".

she went to some camps that year she was selected to do D3 games and this year she has contract for D2 and D1 womens side. We'll see what they give this year as games.

Funny that you mention camps, because that was going to be my advice for you to give this other official. Try to get him to go to some local, HS level camps in your area. That way he can get lots of feedback without getting ripped by the "college" guys who want him to be ready for that level...at a camp like that he will meet people who can and will take him under their tutelage and help him out quite a bit, plus he will see what he really should be doing.

Another idea is to invite him to go and watch some of the high-level varsity games in your area and sit and watch the officials with him..

And as for that "good old boys" club mentality, while we all know that it can and does exist, the best way to break it is to be so damn good that they just can't ignore you anymore. Unless you're Snaqs, than you might as well just give up cause they don't want any coughers in the club anyway...

But Dan said....

refnrev,

It sounds to me like he has no understanding of what he is suppose to look like and what he is actually supposed to do from an officiating point of view. You cannot claim "old boy network" when people can look at you and see that you are out of place.

Also I would not recommend someone like that to this board. I think it is better for people that have some working knowledge of what they are supposed to do or willing to learn. Based on what you described, I do not know that he fits that profile and this place can be not only confusing but brutal if you do not know many of the basics.

All you should do is tell him to attend some camps with the IHSA and I am sure someone can help him out as to what to do. It is not uncommon to have people that have little or no experience and they learn more than they would otherwise.

Peace

Reminds me of a time when I had this varsity official give me a package of M&Ms after my game. I'm not sure, but I think he was trying to say that my performance was equal to or less than the cost of those (peanut) M&Ms. :D:D Of course, I'm kidding...

Bob,

I would suggest inviting him to those clinics. Those sound like a really good idea and sounds like they give you a lot of different things to look at. I certainly wish those were what our clinics were like (classroom part) before we go onto the floor. Always seems to me they lose the interest of most of the people in the class after about 20 or 25 slides.

If you go to their meetings and you can't tell if they're old boys or old girls, then they probably have bi-laws. ;)

Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

______________________


Unortunately, you're right. I remember my first post. I got jumped on by a rules book superman. Rather than helping people get better sometimes some of the people of this baord just beat them up and run them off. It's kind of sad. he went to a clinic a week or so ago. Hope he got help am not hung.

If I was critiquing your performance, wouldn't I have just opened the package and given you only one? ;) :D

I have found some older officials to have the mentality that helping a younger official is the same as taking away their games. This is probably more true in a rural setting where there are fewer games. That's too bad, because I've found helping other officials actually helps me. None of us want to get stuck working with "that guy" (all genders included!...). So if I can help out "that guy", the next time I have to work with them will be a better experience.

I usually give my partners Ex-lax, especially if they called the game too "tight".:rolleyes:

Sad, but true...in my case, I would love to have someone take some of those games.

Mark:

I will stop taking your meds because you need them more than I do. :D

MTD, Sr.

Second year official here, yes, I'm one of the 30% or so that came back for year two. I found this site around the time I first started pouring through the rules and case books around this same time last year.

I think people search for information when there's enough desire. My guess is many of us found this site because of searching for information to become a good official. Although I have no problem telling him about this site, I guess a part of me wonders if he hasn't found it by now would he utilize the resource? Only one way to find out, I guess.