ratings

[jeremy341a]

How do the ratings work in your area?

In Missouri each Coach of every varsity contest anonymously rates the official on a scale of 1-5. The ratings are averaged out to give you one score. There are also 6 categories in which a Coach can mark you need improvement or you exceed expectations in. Those categories are verbal communication skills, physical appearance, effort, control, consistency and professionalism.

[Raymond]

It will always be skewed b/c most of the time a coach will only rate an official if he feels the official screwed him in some way.

[JRutledge]

We have an overall rating system. Coaches only contribute to a small percentage of that system. Most of the stuff we control. I do not sweat it and never have and I have done well not worrying about it in my career and in all my sports.

Peace

[BatteryPowered]

In my area, the evaluations (if they are done during the year) are mostly by retired officials who were well respected when they called games. In theory, every official is to be evaluated once during "live action" be two or three different members of the committee and their reports are given to the assignor. In reality, the evaluations are done at camps in the area. Fortunately our chapter puts on one that is considered among the best in the state so there are excellent officials giving feedback to both the campers and the assignor.

I know I was not evaluated during this last season because they are supposed to speak with you after the game and go over their report (and I know one of the committee members and asked if an evaluator just forgot to meet with me). So as you can see...theory and practice are completely different. A member of our chapter can request an evaluation but I don't think anyone has made a request because they don't want to risk shooting themselves in the foot with one bad (or below average) game. In theory an evaluation is only suppose to be used to find officials who are ready for "better games"...see theory and practice comment earlier in post.

[SC Official]

In South Carolina, every official has a rating on a 100-point scale when the season starts.

25 max points–exam score (percentage multiple by 25)

25 max points–experience credit (you get points every year until your fifth year when you get the full 25)

25 max points–peer ratings (scale of 1-10, average computed and multiplied by 2.5)

20 max points–state clinic, meetings, and exam attendance

5 max points–cooperation (points deducted for turnbacks, etc.)

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

It will always be skewed b/c most of the time a coach will only rate an official if he feels the official screwed him in some way.

Evidence from our state shows differently.

How it works, to answer the OP, is that officials complain about it no matter what it is or isn't instead of focusing on something they can control.

[jpgc99]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

How it works, to answer the OP, is that officials complain about it no matter what it is or isn't instead of focusing on something they can control.

This is true. The best answer is to ignore the ratings system and focus on self improvement - go to camp, break down film, ask for honest evaluation from respected peers.

The problem with all rating systems is the lack of consistency in the person completing the evaluation. In the past I worked in a state where coaches rated officials on a scale 1-5. One coach said that he would never give an official greater than a 3, no matter the circumstance. This was not typical of coaches in the schools served by the association because the average rating of varsity officials was always greater than 4.5.

If you worked several games for that coach, your rating would suffer due to no reflection of your actual performance but rather than luck of your assignments.

The main point is this: No system is perfect, most have serious flaws. But, they are not going to go away. You should focus your personal improvement on things you can control: appearance, mechanics, rules knowledge, judgement. Go to camp, break down film, and critique yourself. Do those things, and you will be respected as an official no matter what evaluation system is in place.

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

It will always be skewed b/c most of the time a coach will only rate an official if he feels the official screwed him in some way.

In Missouri, the coaches have to rate their officials for each game or they get fined and possibly banned from postseason play.

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by jeremy341a

How do the ratings work in your area?

In Missouri each Coach of every varsity contest anonymously rates the official on a scale of 1-5. The ratings are averaged out to give you one score. There are also 6 categories in which a Coach can mark you need improvement or you exceed expectations in. Those categories are verbal communication skills, physical appearance, effort, control, consistency and professionalism.

I don't put much stock into it anymore. It's quite humorous really. I just finished my 8th season of basketball. My ratings in my 7th and 8th seasons were worse than my rating in both my 5th and 6th seasons. There is no way that I was a better official three or four years ago than I am now. It all depends on what games you work and who you happen to piss off.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

It will always be skewed b/c most of the time a coach will only rate an official if he feels the official screwed him in some way.

They tracked that fact in our system and foul that there was only a .02 or .01 percentage difference in the ratings for the winning or losing coaches. We have a problem is to get coaches to actually rate officials. Not getting a rating often hurts us more than getting a bad rating as the more you get the better your percentile.

But as I have said in other topics of this, we have a 40 point rating. Each category is worth 5 points. And we control things like what we get on the rules test, camps we attend, frequency of camps we attend and even promotion process is on us as officials. And after it is all said and done, there is a person that looks at the numbers and makes decisions based on their own personal criteria when making actual assignments.

Peace

[BillyMac]

We used to have peer ratings that contributed 80% of our overall ratings. The other 20% was refresher exam, availability, and meeting attendance.
All four officials at a site, two junior varsity, and two varsity, rated everybody else at the site. We've been doing it that way for over thirty-five years.

Everything changed this year. Now we only peer rate our partner, and the refresher exam, availability, and meeting attendance, have nothing to do with the overall rating. And the peer rating itself isn't set in stone. We now have a committee of observers that observe, and rate, all officials, and this committee can use, or not use, the peer ratings.

[ballgame99]

Grrrrr. I just checked my rating (I'm from Mo), and apparently I am a worse official this year than I was last year

[BlueDevilRef]

As I've stated, I am a new basketball official. I only had one varsity game this past season and I was rated very low by both coaches. IMO, didn't have any issues during the game and it was pretty much a blowout. Several other new officials I have talked to in the same situation had the same thing happen to them. It drives me nuts that this anonymous system could possibly effect me down the road for postseason or better assignments. I really wish that coaches would have to tell you what they mean by a needs improvement score in a category. If the system is designed to help an official by providing that feedback, it should be more informative.

I know in my head that it's because I'm the new guy and you have to start somewhere, but damn. The same thing happened in softball and now I have a really good rating there. I know I have a lot to work on, which is why I'm studying the book when I can, talking to mentor and other peers, and attending camps when I can. But still frustrates me to no end that coaches are the only ones who do ratings.

Or maybe I just suck that bad.............I suppose it is possible.

[Zoochy]

Originally Posted by ballgame99

Grrrrr. I just checked my rating (I'm from Mo), and apparently I am a worse official this year than I was last year

WOW I just check mine too. I really stink. I am in the 'Probation' category.

[JRutledge]

Is the Missouri system to help you improve or is the system in place so they can use an objective system to help make decisions?

Are not human beings making the assignments? I would doubt unless stated that the human beings making the assignments are not considering other factors. That is just a guess on my part, but this is why I have a problem with how we focus on ratings.

Peace