Mentoring Program

[OrStBballRef]

I've been a part of our mentoring program for the past several years now. It recently underwent a little bit of a revamp in terms of placing officials together in the same geographic area.

Mentors are expected to observe and communicate with the folks they are mentoring. Not just observe for a quarter 1-2x a year but actually take in 3/4 or a full game. The folks being mentored are supposed to stay and watch their mentors if they are doing a varsity game. Which includes coming down at halftime or at the end of game in addition to the all important pregame talk.

I have to say this year in our association our assignor did a great job of pairing up myself and my mentee. We only worked a couple of MS games together but he followed me like 7-8 times this year. I was able to observe him at the start of the season, the middle and at the end. Early in the season I observed several things that needed to be corrected and constantly worked with him over the course of the year in the games I observed to correct those things.

That being said I was surprised in the amount of times I followed him he never stuck around. Never stayed until halftime or the end of the game. Never really followed up to ask how anything played out in my game etc...I talked to several other people in the program and their experience was similar. The folks they were mentoring never stuck around once the JV game was over with. I have to say it's valuable to be around the locker room before and after the game to hear what plays out. I sure learned a lot when I was first starting out from the varsity guys and we've been told to include the folks we are mentoring in the pregame/post-game stuff.