Question on Local Association Meetings

BigWing · #1 (**permalink**) Wed Jul 13, 2005, 02:42pm

Hi all...I haven't posted messages on this forum before but read the board fairly regularly. Reading posts on this website has been a great way to keep the mind in tune with officiating all year long. I'm in Des Moines, IA and have been at this a dozen years or so.

My question for the group is related to something I agreed to undertake this fall, which is leading the Des Moines Football Officials Association. A big part of what this entails is setting the agenda for our in-season meetings. I am penciling together our agenda right now and could use some help. We typically have 30-50 at any given meeting, and we have six meetings that go an hour-and-a-half during the season, which typically we included a "mechanics" or "rules" presentation or another type of "feature" discussion. Wondering if any of you have been a part of any specific presentations that worked well or if you had any other suggestions.

As far as the "features" (main speaker, discussion leader) Here is what I've come up with so far:

1. I have the Officials Coordinator from the State Association scheduled...this is the person in charge of all the playoff assignments and the evening should take care of itself.

2. I have a trainer/physical therapist from a local Orthopedics office to give information on training and injury prevention related to officiating.

3. I tentatively have an attorney and accountant (members of the association) to talk about legal issues and financial issues related to officiating.

4. My main focus this year is on retaining young members. We've had a terrible problem in the past not with getting new officials, but with KEEPING them. I couldn't count the number of guys that work a year or two and then bow out. This is a whole other topic of discussion, but basically I am starting a "mentoring" program for the association where a veteran crew will take a new guy under their wing for a year or two, answering questions, working some lower-level games, etc. Then after that training period is over, we need to have the younger guys start forming crews instead of lingering around waiting for someone on an existing crew to die or get transferred out of state. My goal is to give these guys the confidence to form their own crews.

I am digressing...what I need are any riginal/popular ideas that you may have seen at your meetings. I've done some video presentations in the past and would welcome anyone that could point me towards something helpful along those lines...or anything else your group may have done that "worked".

(By the way, I have my first game in 10 days! Aren't you all jealous?)

JasonTX · #2 (**permalink**) Wed Jul 13, 2005, 04:16pm

10 days. I just had a game at the end of June. You seem to be doing a good job with your sessions. In reply to #4: Here in Texas we meet every Monday through the whole season. Keeping new guys around is a huge issue. A lot of new guys want to work varsity right away. Any oppurtunity you guys can get to put them on the field will go a long way in their retention. I spoke with a guy from Houston and he said there were guys there that's been doing this for 7 years and still haven't had a varsity game. I'm not sure of too many who would wait that long. I had a 6 varsity games on my schedule my first year and that was definitely motivation in bringing me back. A lot of new guys and old guys want to make it to the NFL so bringing in a NFL official (normally a R since most will recognize them from TV) and have them talk about the climb to the NFL in a way that does't seem like it's impossible to get there. If you can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel then that's a small amount of motivation to come back.

BigWing · #3 (**permalink**) Thu Jul 14, 2005, 08:24am

Thanks for the help, Jason.

You reinforced my thought to try for an NFL guy...I am hoping because we actually are fortunate enough to have two active NFL guys and one retired NFL umpire in our Association. It is just a matter of luck whether their schedules will allow them to come to a meeting.

#4 (**permalink**) Thu Jul 14, 2005, 08:34am

Bigwig,
Even if you can't get an NFL official, try a top college official from your area. Kind of show them "look I made it this fsr from this association"

good luck!

Big-Tee · #5 (**permalink**) Fri Jul 15, 2005, 08:54am

Something we started this year in our local association is playing Rules Jeopardy where crews would go up aganist each other. All the question would be based upon various rules and scenarios

#6 (**permalink**) Fri Jul 15, 2005, 10:10am

Big-Tee,

That sounds like an awesome Idea!

wisref2 · #7 (**permalink**) Tue Jul 19, 2005, 12:35am

Feel free to steal (borrow) some stuff from my website at http://web1.lakefield.net/~dday/ref.htm. I'm the VP and football chair of our local association. We recently adopted new rules about our in-season sports that requires at least 60 minutes of educational material at each meeting.

Few notes of caution - these presentations are from past seasons so be aware of potential rule changes. I suggest you not use the presentation about keys for 5-man crews - it was heavily edited for time. There is a much better version on the national federation web site.

Another fun activity - have everyone bring their whistle and take turns blowing the whistle, blowing the whistle and stopping the clock, etc. You'll be amazed at how bad some people look! Sorry, I mean you'll be amazed at how much people can learn and improve their mechanics. Practice ball relay - one thing that can make a crew look really bad. Again, many refs didn't play football and don't know how to toss the ball underhanded.

Reminds me, I have a clinic to prepare for and football meetings to plan! The season is upon us.

#8 (**permalink**) Tue Jul 19, 2005, 04:56pm

Quote:

Originally posted by wisref2
Feel free to steal (borrow) some stuff from my website at http://web1.lakefield.net/~dday/ref.htm. I'm the VP and football chair of our local association. We recently adopted new rules about our in-season sports that requires at least 60 minutes of educational material at each meeting.

Few notes of caution - these presentations are from past seasons so be aware of potential rule changes. I suggest you not use the presentation about keys for 5-man crews - it was heavily edited for time. There is a much better version on the national federation web site.

Another fun activity - have everyone bring their whistle and take turns blowing the whistle, blowing the whistle and stopping the clock, etc. You'll be amazed at how bad some people look! Sorry, I mean you'll be amazed at how much people can learn and improve their mechanics. Practice ball relay - one thing that can make a crew look really bad. Again, many refs didn't play football and don't know how to toss the ball underhanded.

Reminds me, I have a clinic to prepare for and football meetings to plan! The season is upon us.

Doug,
I have to say...Awesome site! Some great power point press...

Only thing you left a period in your post in the URL...so you can't click on the link it comes up as an error message..

http://web1.lakefield.net/~dday/ref.htm

JRutledge · #9 (**permalink**) Wed Jul 20, 2005, 11:06am

I belong to two different associations. One has many Big Ten and MAC officials that regularly attend meetings. We even have currently 3 NFL officials that attend from time to time as well. So any phase of the game can be covered by people those you see on TV or have achieved the highest levels. This association meets every Tuesday almost the entire football season. This association is greatly focused on college officiating. Almost every association has an extensive tape presentation that covers many plays from the past years (sometimes the current year) with situations and plays that are unusual to bring home a point. Just watching these tapes has added 10 years to my career from an experience point of view. I have seen plays that I never see during games. When something similar happens on the field, I can reference what I saw during these presentations. No wonder this association creates some of the best officials in the country.

My other association is a much smaller association. This association is geared only towards HS football and we have many officials that have worked the state finals in their career. I am the treasure of this association and as a board member we try our best to help newer officials with a "New Officials" meeting before our regular meeting. We try our best to cover topics and mechanics that affect every position and go over some of the most difficult and complicated rules in football. The last few years our meeting attendance has increased and we are growing with newer officials.

Peace

cowbyfan1 · #10 (**permalink**) Thu Jul 21, 2005, 02:19am

I have to agree that keeping new officials is hard to do. I think that there are a few things that lead to them not hanging around:
1. They find out it is not as easy as they think it is
2. laziness as they do not want to put in the time to get better or the time to get games.
3. they think they can walk in off the street and call that big game or even playoffs. We had a guy in my rookie class actually call the state wondering where his state playoff game was and why had he not been called.
4. Senior memebers not working with them and or getting so many different "pointers". An association needs to be on the same sheet as much as possible. I can remember being told so many different things on signals, where to move, when to move, etc for working a wing spot my head hurt.
5. life changes where they don't have or don't want to have the time to call.

I'm sure that there are others.

My second year we had something like 27 new officials that year. I think we have kept something like 3 or 4. There are only a few left from my rookie class. We split our 1st - 3rd year officials out from the rest to get training on mechanics. But again, some other senior guys think that they do it the best way and it can get rough on a young guy.

#11 (**permalink**) Thu Jul 21, 2005, 10:38am

Quote:

Originally posted by cowbyfan1
4. Senior memebers not working with them and or getting so many different "pointers". An association needs to be on the same sheet as much as possible. I can remember being told so many different things on signals, where to move, when to move, etc for working a wing spot my head hurt.

My second year we had something like 27 new officials that year. I think we have kept something like 3 or 4. There are only a few left from my rookie class. We split our 1st - 3rd year officials out from the rest to get training on mechanics. But again, some other senior guys think that they do it the best way and it can get rough on a young guy.

We had a simular problem with senior members help the "cadets"...It was cool to help the cadets when I first started. Since that time I have become the cadet trainer and put the thought that it is cool to help out the new guys or they will never h=get better.

Before I took over the cadet classes we averaged 2 guys passing the written test out of 30. Now, in two year we have 20 guys pass and have about 7 guys looking to pass this year. Also we have 8 first year guys.

Last year we have a big push for officials and had 30 first year guys. We start our classes the first week of June and go through the season every weds nite. By 3 weeks in we lost 10 guys. We are lucky to have 5-6 guys left from those 30 guys.