Professionalism

[icallfouls]

Originally Posted by Coach Bill

My views on professionalism usually have nothing to do with technical fouls. Are you hustling up and down the court, and getting in position? Are you officiating the game the same from beginning to end? Is a blowout officiated the same as a close game? Can I communicate with you or are you standoff-ish? On a foul, do you always give the mechanic in addition to the player number? Do you always make sure my team wins? Just kidding about the last one. Seriously, work hard, be consistent, and do all the little things.

What does "usually do not have anything to do with TF's" mean to you coach. It does not seem to fit with your overall statement.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by icallfouls

What does "usually do not have anything to do with TF's" mean to you coach. It does not seem to fit with your overall statement.

Seems to fit his overall statement perfectly to me. None of the rest of his paragraph has anything to do with Technical Fouls. He's saying whether you do or don't call them has nothing to do with his interpretation of your professionalism ... and with the exception of those few officials who issue T's with vehemence and vitriole, I agree with him.

[Coach Bill]

Originally Posted by icallfouls

What does "usually do not have anything to do with TF's" mean to you coach. It does not seem to fit with your overall statement.

The OP mentioned that he didn't give a single tech, but didn't do so well on the ratings. That's why I mentioned it as usually not being a professionalism issue. I can't think of many times when I considered a T or no T a lack of professionalism. How did that not fit with what i said?

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Coach Bill

... Can I communicate with you or are you standoff-ish? ...

I don't start the game standoff-ish, that always results from less than professional communication from the coach.

[Brad]

Collectively, coach ratings can be useful. Take all the ratings and average them — and, assuming you collected enough data, you'll have a pretty good ranking of your officials from top to bottom. From what I have seen, this often mirrors ratings by other officials and observers ... There are differences, of course, but the same officials tend to be in the top quadrants across the board.

Individually, coach ratings of "needs improvement" as well as "excellent" can both be summarily ignored. They don't count for much and are often based on the coaches last experience with that official, whether he won/lost the game, etc.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Brad

Collectively, coach ratings can be useful. Take all the ratings and average them, and, assuming you collected enough data, you'll have a pretty good ranking of your officials from top to bottom. From what I have seen, this often mirrors ratings by other officials and observers. There are differences, of course, but the same officials tend to be in the top quadrants across the board.

Brad: You have forfeited your official membership in the He Man Coaches Haters Club. You have forfeited any dues that you may have paid. Please turn in your badge, and secret decoder ring. No due process is needed here. We have you quoted on the internet, and, according to Abraham Lincoln, the dead president on the five dollar bill, we are supposed to believe everything that we read on the internet, and as we all know, "Honest Abe" would never lie about the internet.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Brad: You have forfeited your official membership in the He Man Coaches Haters Club. You have forfeited any dues that you may have paid. Please turn in your badge, and secret decoder ring. No due process is needed here. We have you quoted on the internet, and, according to Abraham Lincoln, the dead president on the five dollar bill, we are supposed to believe everything that we read on the internet, and as we all know, "Honest Abe" would never lie about the internet.

Bwahahaha nicely played

Now I'm kind of interested in how well coach ratings and observer / official ratings reflect each other ... I was really only commenting based on my observation, which isn't really analysis of the data. Definitely going to look at this.

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Brad: You have forfeited your official membership in the He Man Coaches Haters Club.

Little Rascals/Our Gang reference. Nice.

That said, if we spend much time wringing our hands over the lower part of our ratings, shouldn't we spend just as much time patting ourselves on the back over the higher marks?

Of course, we typically don't do the latter, so why do the former? Pay attention to the collective.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by bainsey

Little Rascals/Our Gang reference. Nice.

Thanks. Not too many of the young'uns on the Forum would get the reference.

[Adam]

And of course, by "young'uns", you mean anyone born after 1950.

[TheOracle]

Originally Posted by packersowner

I am really struggling with this area and maybe because I am trying to define what "professionalism" means in the context of officiating. I did not have a single coach technical this year, in fact I felt that in most of the games I officiated, I personally did not have those situations where professionalism could be called into question. What's a little frustrating is that I actually felt overall this year, I handled coaches and players much better than in years past, yet my evaluation makes it appear that I got worse. The crews I worked with had very few problems, of course we had a coach here or there where we needed to take care of the situation, but for the most part it was a good year. I try to not put too much stock in this, but this is an area where its hard to read a book on, or study the rules more. Am I missing something or should I just let it go?

Just relax. It's one data point. Coaches will give higher marks for professionalism for people they know and are comfortable with. Aggressive officials always get lower marks in this area when they are new or unknown, and if they are good officials, it is seen as "toughness".

Professionalism is really pretty easy. Earn your money. Show up on time, look good, know the rules, physically hustle/show passion for what you are doing, and treat everyone in the gym with the respect that they deserve. The last thing, and toughest thing, is to be the biggest person possible if someone doesn't show you the respect that you are showing them, while doing your job. You will never do it perfectly every night, but over time, you will maximize how "professional" you are, and my guess is that your ratings in this area will be pretty good if you consciously try to do these things.

Last point, coaches that hold grudges over legitimate T's are not terribly successful and don't last long, as a rule. No different than officials that hold grudges. Coaches and officials that are successful have to work together well. There are exceptions, but they are rare.

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by packersowner

I recently was reviewing the rankings as provided by coaches and especially in the areas of professionalism. I was on both ends of the spectrum - either exceeds expectations or needs improvement. Let me also just say at the outset that I really hate coaches giving rankings on officiating crews - I am not a person who has been working in this area for 20 years, so not everyone knows my name like others. I am not sure how coaches can go back and evaluate officials when they don't remember their names. But thats another topic.

I am really struggling with this area and maybe because I am trying to define what "professionalism" means in the context of officiating. I did not have a single coach technical this year, in fact I felt that in most of the games I officiated, I personally did not have those situations where professionalism could be called into question. What's a little frustrating is that I actually felt overall this year, I handled coaches and players much better than in years past, yet my evaluation makes it appear that I got worse. The crews I worked with had very few problems, of course we had a coach here or there where we needed to take care of the situation, but for the most part it was a good year. I try to not put too much stock in this, but this is an area where its hard to read a book on, or study the rules more. Am I missing something or should I just let it go?

I would not worry much about this as "Professionalism" is a subjective term and means different things to different people. It could be as simple as the coaches not knowing your face, their perception of how confident you were, or any number of other subjective things. Plus you said the ratings are over the place and and probably not statistically valid with such fluctuation and a small sample size.

I would think professionalism would encompass overall things like how officials administer the game and communicates information. But again, its subjective and who knows what some of the coaches were basing this on.

Your assignor's and fellow officials have a much better sense of what professionalism means in regards to officiating. And I would worry what they have to say about this.

I think, in general, coach's evaluations have merit but must be taken in context. And whatever terms are on their evaluation should be clearly defined by whichever powers that be are using and giving them out.