Non-refs evalutating officials

[Back In The Saddle]

I'm trying to put together some general guidelines for a game administrator, who has never refereed, to evaluate officials for me. I can't be at her site one night for this tourney, so I'm relying on her to help me determine which officials to move on to the semis and final. I haven't ever seen most of these officials work, and they're all volunteers with limited training.

Here's what I've come up with. It's intended to give her a somewhat more informed basis for forming general impressions, without getting technical. What do you think?

1. Does the official appear to take care of his/her own "business" or does he/she frequently defer calls, rules, and/or decisions to his/her partner?

2. Does the official communicate well with the participants? Or do players and partners wander around, scratching their heads, wondering what's going on?

3. Does the official communicate adequately with the table crew? Or are you left guessing what they called?

4. Do the official's calls match the game? Or is there a noticible gap between the players' skills and the way the official calls the game?

5. Does the official blow the whistle with confidence?

6. Does the official appear to use proper signals?

7. Can the official handle being "the bad guy"? Or does he/she constantly seek the approval of the players, coaches, fans.

8. Does the official help you keep things running on time?

9. Do they show up, preferably 15-30 minutes before their game, properly attired?
10. Do the players have a good experience when this official is working?

[Junker]

Doesn't look bad, but for #1 are you going to explain coverage areas? A non-official may not know when an official is "taking care of their business".

[BayStateRef]

Shorten the list.

Re-order the list so that the "most important" thing is first.

[grunewar]

Anything on appearance or hustle?

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by Junker

Doesn't look bad, but for #1 are you going to explain coverage areas? A non-official may not know when an official is "taking care of their business".

Good point.

The question isn't about the official making/passing on calls in/out of his/her area. It's a general impression kind of question. Were there moments when the observer thought to herself, "The ref needs to take care of that."? If so, did the official step up and take care of it? Or did he/she shy away from the situation and let his/her partner deal with it? It could be answering questions, dealing with unusual situations, general handling of a rough game, etc.

Maybe I need to reword that one.

[Back In The Saddle]

Okay, I've reworded, re-ordered, and shortened the list. It now reads:

* Do the participants have a good experience with this official working the game?

* Does the official make calls? Do the calls generally seem reasonable?

* Does the official communicate well? Or are players, coaches, table crew, and partners often wondering what just happened?

* Is the official willing to "be the bad guy"? Or does he/she seem to need approval from players, coaches, fans.

* Does the official appear to "handle" things? Or does he/she noticibly defer answering questions, handling situations, making calls to his/her partner?

* Does the official hustle and keep up with the game? Does he/she seem to know where to be? Is he/she often at the other end of the floor from the play?

* Does the official blow the whistle with confidence and appear to use proper signals?

Any other thoughts?

[mick]

Originally Posted by Back In The Saddle

Okay, I've reworded, re-ordered, and shortened the list. It now reads:

* Do the participants have a good experience with this official working the game?

* Does the official make calls? Do the calls generally seem reasonable?

* Does the official communicate well? Or are players, coaches, table crew, and partners often wondering what just happened?

* Is the official willing to "be the bad guy"? Or does he/she seem to need approval from players, coaches, fans.

* Does the official appear to "handle" things? Or does he/she noticibly defer answering

questions, handling situations, making calls to his/her partner?

* Does the official hustle and keep up with the game? Does he/she seem to know where to be? Is he/she often at the other end of the floor from the play?

* Does the official blow the whistle with confidence and appear to use proper signals?

Any other thoughts?

Bits,

Please don't take this as being cavalier, but I am pretty sure you will only get one answer [from an unasked question]:

Which official looks and seems to be the most affable.

All the useable questions will be moot.

But, I do hope it works for you !

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by mick

Bits,

Please don't take this as being cavalier, but I am pretty sure you will only get one answer [from an unasked question]:

Which official looks and seems to be the most affable.

All the useable questions will be moot.

But, I do hope it works for you !

You may be right. Either way, if the officials all perform about the same, and there are no major problems or obvious incompetence, I can live with affableness as the distinguishing criteria.

[Dan_ref]

I would limit it, more like this

1. Was the official on time? Did his appearance meet your expectations?

2. Does the official communicate well with the participants?

3. Does the official communicate well with the table crew? With you and other game supervisors?

4. Did the official keep control of the games?

5. Do the official's calls match the game?

6. Does the official help you keep things running on time?
7. Other comments?

[SMEngmann]

My list would be the following:

1) Is the official believable? By his/her appearance, hustle, signals and presence, does the official look like he/she is connected with the game.

2) Call selection: does the official call obvious plays and not interrupt the game needlessly.

3) Communication: how well does the official appear to work with his partner? How does the official handle being questioned by participants/fans.

4) Dead ball/game awareness: does the official have command of the dead ball situations and timing situations, or does he/she constantly confer with the scorer's table and delay the game.


I think these 4 points are general enough that a non-referee can evaluate refs, particularly at the youth level.

[gordon30307]

Originally Posted by Back In The Saddle

I'm trying to put together some general guidelines for a game administrator, who has never refereed, to evaluate officials for me. I can't be at her site one night for this tourney, so I'm relying on her to help me determine which officials to move on to the semis and final. I haven't ever seen most of these officials work, and they're all volunteers with limited training.

Here's what I've come up with. It's intended to give her a somewhat more informed basis for forming general impressions, without getting technical. What do you think?

1. Does the official appear to take care of his/her own "business" or does he/she frequently defer calls, rules, and/or decisions to his/her partner?

2. Does the official communicate well with the participants? Or do players and partners wander around, scratching their heads, wondering what's going on?

3. Does the official communicate adequately with the table crew? Or are you left guessing what they called?

4. Do the official's calls match the game? Or is there a noticible gap between the players' skills and the way the official calls the game?

5. Does the official blow the whistle with confidence?

6. Does the official appear to use proper signals?

7. Can the official handle being "the bad guy"? Or does he/she constantly seek the approval of the players, coaches, fans.

8. Does the official help you keep things running on time?

9. Do they show up, preferably 15-30 minutes before their game, properly attired?
10. Do the players have a good experience when this official is working?

Volunteers. No Pay. No Training.

My List:

1. Did they show up on time.
2. Games Covered.
3. Kids had fun and no one got hurt.

This is all you can expect.

[ma_ref]

Have to agree with the last post. If you really care about all that criteria, then you should be using certified officials for your games. I'm assuming this is an in-town league, so hiring real officials may be cost prohibitive. You'd probably be better off just doing a quick league-wide survey of coaches and having them send you a list of the people they think are the top 4 or 5 officials (no specific criteria...just who they think are qualified in general), and then you could choose from that.

Evaluating officials is a good thing...it's how we improve ourselves, and if we can't take criticism from our peers then we're in the wrong business. But critiquing volunteers, in much the same way as professionals, is another thing. It's like the old saying, "You get what you pay for." Voluteers = $0 cost, so don't expect too much. I hope I don't sound too harsh, and you can choose to ignore my .02 cents, but that's pretty much how I see it.