I wish I knew then what I know now...
 

This one's for anyone who wished you knew something that you didn't know when you first started out. It could be something related to play call accuracy, game management, or just overall development. I know there are no shortcuts to becoming a good official but I, for one, do learn from other people's experiences and would be glad to have more arrows in my quiver for next season.

Besides all the basic stuff (control what you can control, improve each year by going to camps, family first, etc) what would you tell an official who just completed his first year at the varsity level that you wished you had known at that point in your career?

After 28 seasons, in spite of what they told me, I'm not a millionaire.

Coaches don't know the rules. Oh wait - it didn't take an entire season to learn that. I learned it about 30 seconds into my first game ever.

Wish I Didn't Know Now What I Didn't Know Then . . . Toby Keith
 

What I wish I knew then that I know now:
...that video review, study, with honest personal self-assessment and meaningful peer evaluation is the most valuable tool for improvement. Get as many games on video as you can.

Keep a journal of your games. Write down unusual occurrences, how you felt before, during and after the game, things you need to work on, things you think you did well, so on and so forth.

I wish I had done this when I started and I don't do it consistently now but I enjoy going back and reading over what I have written down.

I also go into games with a couple of things I want to focus on. Personal POEs if you will.

1. One is not as good as one thinks.
2. At the HS level, officiating is 99% about people skills and 1% about play calling.

Dress professionally when showing up for camps. Don't show up in sweats and t-shirts like you are still a player.

Four things (not in particular order):

1) Make your calls strong and firm--even if it's a bad call

2) Never take it personal when coaches are constantly riding you.

3) Always seek out advice from other officials--in fact that applies for all officials. The learning curve never stops--at least for me :D

4) Enjoy the game and have fun with it!!

For me personally, I wish I knew how important the concept of officiating the defense really is. At the end of last season I had a big, big dawg tell me it was a fundamental flaw in my game. I stewed on that all summer, figured out what he meant and worked on it in camp. I continued to work on it all this season. The court seemingly "opened up" to me. Now it presents a whole different set of improvement to be made that I wish I had worked out back when I was still doing JV games. (Thus the title of the thread.)

Something that never occurred to me. Thanks.

I might be going in the right direction on this. Last year I gave a lot of Ts. This year, not one. That wasn't the result of a conscious effort, I just think folks are better behaved...

I even had one coach say "Ok, thanks." after a couple of travel squawks to which I replied "I hear ya, coach." No more squawks about traveling the rest of the game. :eek:

I couldn't disagree with you more. Proper play calling makes the people side of the equation a heckuva lot easier in my experience.

Calling the game correctly makes it a hell of a lot easier to interact with the people involved (coaches, players, etc). They aren't exclusive of one-another.

Agree, people skills are less important if your officiating skills are good. I am not a seasoned official yet, but I have seen this first hand already. One of the best officials in our Assn barely talks to coaches because he doesn't have to. Coaches respect his game, and know he has good judgement because he has demonstrated it over and over. This is what I strive for.

1. Treat each game with the professionalism it deserves (reguardless of level).

I have worked far fewer Varsity contests this year due to moving. However, because of the weather, rescheduled games, and GVB regionals I picked up quite a few. Many officials view GVB as a joke. If you get to this point do yourself, and others and quite taking them. Let someone who will appreciate the opportunity work them. whatever the level of play those teams deserve 100% or your time and effort.

Keep your mouth shut and call your games.

In other words....

Don't complain about the assignments you get or don't get
Don't complain about the assignments other officials get or don't get
Be the best official you can be
Don't ever think you have "arrived"...constantly work to be better