Ranking of Officials by your Association

[tjones1]

If you're an officer of your assoication or you know how your process works, please respond.

In Illinois, officials assoication may submit a Top 15 list to the state. This is typically done by the membership voting who their Top 15 officials are.

How does your association handle the following:

1) Do you require voters to rank 1-15 (or 1-x)? If they do not, do you count their ballot?

2) Do you verify the ballot is correct before accepting? Or is it the responsibility of the voter?

3) What type of ballot do you use? Do you provide a list of eligible people to be on it and have voters rank? Or do you provide blanks and have voters fill in each blank with names?

4) Do you have any additional rules voters must follow? If you do, what if they don't follow them?

5) Do you list your rules on the ballot and explain failure to follow will void the ballot?

Thanks for your feedback.

[BillyMac]

If you are asking about state tournament games, the voting is done entirely by the coaches. The officials that get the most votes work tournament games, and those that get the top number of votes make it all the way to the state finals. Officials can work both boys, and girls, tournament games if they make the "cut" on both lists.

And, believe it, or not, the coaches do a pretty good job at selecting the best officials. Last year I didn't have any problems with any of our local officials that made the tournament lists. Two years ago, I had only one questionable official from our local board that make the tournament lists. Otherwise, the best officials work the most important games at the end of the season.

Full disclosure: I have never worked a state tournament game.

[JRutledge]

Every association I belong does it differently. Some vote (only one of those does this), another has the President decide, another has a point system based on everything from giving a presentation to if you have previous playoff experience.

When I was President for 3 years of an organization I made the final say with the consultation of assignors and clinicians. I put people on the list that I felt needed the help to get more points and brought down the people that had been to the State Finals.

Honestly I think there is way too much focus on this list as this list is just as important or weighted as my list or my friends lists. You need schools and coaches to put you on their lists to make an impact in your percentile just like the ratings.

Peace

[brainbrian]

In Missouri coaches rank officials throughout the year. An official has to be in the first quartile to work at the final four and they must be in the first or second quartile to work sectional or quarterfinal games.

Associations can provide a list of officials they recommend to work post season games. The list is broken into, final four, sectional, etc. This must be turned in by early December so the state can evaluate these officials during the season.

As far as our association goes our assignor just recommends the officials.

[Scuba_ref]

We have a 1 to 10 rating with specfic criteria attached to each whole number. All officials that have a rating of 5 or higher (from the previous year) receive a ballot with the name of each official in the association on it and with instructions to provide a rating for each official we have worked with or observed.

Those ballots are then averaged with the highest and lowest rating for each official thrown out. The result is a list ranking every official in our association with a number rating that dictates what level of ball they can officiate.

This list is then sent to the top 15 ranked officials in the association and those officials rate everyone a second time - the first go is basically an exercise in creating the list of 15. This second ranked list is the final list and is used by the assignor to assign games in the regular season and the playoffs. There is a small coach's component that gets added to the number but it really doesn't have a large impact on an official’s final rating.

There are definite flaws with this system as it can appear to be a popularity contest; you can't move someone up or down more than a certain amount without written reasons; there is no accountability for rules knowledge or association meeting attendance; and, we have a working assignor (so if you rate him poorly does that affect your schedule?)

We are slowly trying to shift the mentality within the association and introduce some objective criteria into the rating process but that is a difficult sell. Currently many feel that the system is a way of oppressing officials when really the goal should be to get everyone rated as high as possible to bring the whole association up.

[tomegun]

Interesting discussion. We (Southern Nevada) have a Commissioner that makes the final decision with input from a few people. This happens after the Crew Chiefs (we have ten) provide their list of playoff officials. We had around 80 officials work playoffs (boys and girls) last year.

For those of you that use ratings from coaches, does it impact how officials deal with coaches during the regular season at all?

[OKREF]

In Oklahoma......

1. You get points for the state rules meeting. You have to attend 3 local association meetings.

2. To work the State Tournament you have to have attended a state recognized officials camp once in the last 5 years.

3. For the first round of playoffs, which are the districts, three teams are assigned to play each other by the state. The coaches of these 3 schools submit a list if 15 officials ranked 1-15. The state then assigns 2 from that list to the districts if possible. This list is not a guarantee that you will get any of those guys.

4. For the remaining rounds the state association assigns officials for each game. They use criteria such as camp evaluations, game evaluations, previous years ratings, evaluations from observers. Oklahoma has a double elimination playoffs and every school in the state makes the playoffs.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by tomegun

For those of you that use ratings from coaches, does it impact how officials deal with coaches during the regular season at all?

Yes. It does. We have had a few officials who are not well liked among their peers because they catered so much to the coaches at their partner's expense. It was sometimes enough to get them to the tourney but it was viewed a inappropriate. Fortunately, the coaches were only part of the equations so the effect was tempered by other factors but it was still a strong factor.

In recent years, we were able to modify the procedures so that, while the coaches still vote, the impact of an individual coach has been equalized to an individual official....previously a coach's vote counted about 3x the weight of an official's vote.

We expect that the motivation to not make the unpopular or tough decision has been minimized so that officials will be willing to take care of business.

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by brainbrian

In Missouri coaches rank officials throughout the year. An official has to be in the first quartile to work at the final four and they must be in the first or second quartile to work sectional or quarterfinal games.

Associations can provide a list of officials they recommend to work post season games. The list is broken into, final four, sectional, etc. This must be turned in by early December so the state can evaluate these officials during the season.

As far as our association goes our assignor just recommends the officials.

Missouri's postseason process in all sports is a joke, made evident by the product that is on the field in many of those games.

[zm1283]

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[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by tomegun

Interesting discussion. We (Southern Nevada) have a Commissioner that makes the final decision with input from a few people. This happens after the Crew Chiefs (we have ten) provide their list of playoff officials. We had around 80 officials work playoffs (boys and girls) last year.

For those of you that use ratings from coaches, does it impact how officials deal with coaches during the regular season at all?

Nope.

For the record our rating system is not dependant all only coaches ratings. We have a ratings percentage and at Top 15 Percentage. And officials ratings go into the same equation and can affect your percentages from coaches. We have a 40 point system and ratings from coache/officials are only 5 points and 5 points for the Top 15 rankings of that 40 points. You need other numbers and considerations to be high on that 40. Currently I have as high as a number I can without working a State Final, so there is so much you control and other things you control little. So something I must be doing is working.

Honestly it does not change a single thing I do. I work hard, hustle and do my job. Coaches are going to come and go, but officials will often stay the same. And since the same system applies in all sports, I worked three State Finals by not caring one bit about ratings. And yes I have coaches that do not like me or give me problems and I still got to those levels. I am also doing fine in basketball.

Peace

[tomegun]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Nope.

For the record our rating system is not dependant all only coaches ratings. We have a ratings percentage and at Top 15 Percentage. And officials ratings go into the same equation and can affect your percentages from coaches. We have a 40 point system and ratings from coache/officials are only 5 points and 5 points for the Top 15 rankings of that 40 points. You need other numbers and considerations to be high on that 40. Currently I have as high as a number I can without working a State Final, so there is so much you control and other things you control little. So something I must be doing is working.

Honestly it does not change a single thing I do. I work hard, hustle and do my job. Coaches are going to come and go, but officials will often stay the same. And since the same system applies in all sports, I worked three State Finals by not caring one bit about ratings. And yes I have coaches that do not like me or give me problems and I still got to those levels. I am also doing fine in basketball.

Peace

It is good that coaches only play a small percentage in your overall rating. I would hate to be in a situation where I have to bow down to a coach...I wouldn't do well in a system like that. A funny - kind of - short story: my last game in Mississippi nobody knew I was leaving yet. I give the visiting coach a technical foul for something that was stupid. In the locker room, my partner told me that he said, "You will never work at my school again" after I walked away. Excusing the fact that my partner should have given him his second technical for this, if I would have heard it I would have threw him out of the game. I was leaving and wouldn't work his school anyway!!! The association in Mississippi was OK and the other officials were generally good people, but that is one area I don't miss working in. I still miss the DC area and missed Las Vegas while I was away, but not the "dirty south".

[JRutledge]

Our system does not still have people obsessing over ratings. Officials around here do act like they are going to get banned or a bad rating is going to kill their chances. Well it does not really work that way. Actually the more ratings you get the better it helps you as the numbers are balanced off the total number of ratings. Heck I do my job and let the chips fall where they may. Someone told me a long time ago that if a coach does not want you, you probably passed several schools to get to that game. That is so true.

Quick story. I did a JV game for an assignor who I am pretty good friends with. At the time I only was working Regionals (first level) and I was working with another official that was also a playoff official. Well in the game something happen where the home coach made a big deal over something we got right and said, "You will never be back." This happened to be the Varsity coach coaching his team and the other team was also had the Varsity coach running his team. These were bitter rivals and hated each other in just about anything they played each other no matter the sport. Well our playoffs are not assigned locally. The state assigns every single assignment. Well when the post season assignments came out, guess whose school I was working (and they hosted)? You guessed it, the coach that said I would never be back. Funny how he acted towards me the entire time I was there (we had their school twice in the regional). Things can be funny like that sometimes.

Peace