One key thing coach's evaluations do tell us
 

I know a lot of officials have problems with coaches giving evaluations of the officials, but I think they can be worthwhile. Tonight at our chapter meeting, the secretary went over some stats from coaches evaluations and I found one thing very interesting. The evaluations and numbers were tallied (1-5; 1 the best) and averaged. They were then split by home coaches and visiting coaches with the visiting coaches numbers being a bit lower.

At any rate, both sets of coaches rated the wing official on the OTHER side of the field as the lowest rated official of the 5 out there (these are varsity game evaluations only). That tells me that good communication is critical to doing a good job in the coach's eyes. The other wing is really the only official the coach never comes into contact with during a game, and the coach never has an opportunity to offer an opinion or get a response. Obviously, we aren't going to head off all problems, but if we can improve our communication skills, I think these numbers tell us that, on average, we can improve our relationship with coaches.

Comments?

Agreed!
 

This is my first year coaching as an assistant on the high school level. The previous five years I was an active official in the ebofa in the bay area of ca. This year many officials who I know (well) worked many of my games. One in particular has worked three of our home games working LJ on the opposing sideline. I thought he was poor on many occasions this season with ball spotting. (i.e. Forward progress; Signaling touchdown on a run ending at the 4.) However, I worked opposite him maybe twenty times over the years. I never had this poor of an opinion of him when we were working together. I doubt he changed. In my opinion, my view has changed.

I agree that improving communication skills is a way to become a "better" official but I can't see how that is going to help the wing on the opposite side who will never get to use those skills with the coach anyway. Maybe we should look at having H and L swap sides at halftime if the goal is to get guys on both sides of the field to commuinicate with coaches on both sides of the field.

So coaches rate the other wing official lower because they are paying much attention to them and don't really care what their duties are. That would lead me to believe that coaches ratings have little meaning in part because, (a) they appear not to understand the differences between what the wing guys do, (b) they seem to only pay attention to stuff that is directly affecting them, and (c) their general inclination seems to be, "if I'm not watching someone they must not be doing as good as a job."

This just illustrates one of many reasons I find coaches' evaluations worthless.

Also just another example of how someone can take some meaningless numbers to start with and slice it and dice it to show something even more meaningless.

That wasn't my point. What I was saying was that it appears, rightly or wrongly, that coaches view officials they can't communicate with as lower performing than those they can communicate with (or who are just in earshot of them). I'm not suggesting we need to figure out ways to help a line judge communicate better with a visiting team's coach, but rather, to use this data as an indication that if we improve our communications skills with coaches in general, there's a good chance our games will go smoother.

If anyone thinks this is meaningless, so be it. I can't quite figure out why you posted. I think its generally agreed that coach's evaluations aren't a great source of information to foster improvement of officials, especially against things like this forum, camps, individual evaulations, etc. But I do think that if you can take the aggregate trends and use that data to explain behavior, you can come up with useful information.

Perhaps we should do with evaluations what coaches do with rule books....prop up the legs of old office sofas.

That's pretty much a no-brainer isn't it? We don't need coach's evaluations to tell us that. The issue is what do we do to make those improvements? My experience is the guys who do not communicate well with coaches do not communicate well with anyone. And training someone how to communicate is much more than giving him some "catch phrases" to use. The closest thing I have seen is the "verbal judo" curriculum that has been modified for officials and is being taught by the creator of the "program".

For the most part I don't find much value in coaches rating my performance on the field. I would say in my experience 99% of the coached I talk to have not picked up a rule book in years, if ever. This is apparent by some of the questions you get on the field and that we see here, 'Reporting as Eligible, Uncatchable pass, Outside the tackle box, play to the whistle and so on. It's a simple fact that coaches do not understand the rules; like fans they know what they see on Sunday. I asked a coach one time if he would let me call the next offensive series and he could officiate for me. I know as much about coaching as he does about officiating.

We make mistakes on the field, we're human. However we are easy targets for coaches to make excuses for themself for their teams poor performance.

I didn't have a huge amount of time to post when I threw out this one sentence, but I want to clarify.

I want coaches and teams to think we hustle, work hard, and don't care who wins. But asking coaches whether we know the rules, use proper mechanics, etc. is useless unless the coach has as much experience as me or more AS AN OFFICIAL.

I've had observing assigning commissioners who have never worked the sport say they "question my positioning" on a certain play. While I'm polite (I do want to be rehired, for the most part) but I wonder how someone who's never walked in my shoes is somehow qualified to rate me.

Can I rate the HS varsity coach who wanted an uncatchable pass called? Can I rate the HS varsity coach who tried to make #73 "eligible?" Can I rate the varsity coach who thinks a personal foul is an automatic first down?

Frankly I don't want to. And I don't want those coaches rating me cause they don't think I know the rules.

Do most states use coach's votes for playoff assignments? If not, what system do you use? If you use coach's votes, are there any other criteria used?

I remember an article in Referee mag. a few years ago that talked about officials rating officials, and the ratings were all extremely high, and the fact that coaches evaluations were all good representative of the quality of officiating. I took to beleiving that coaches evaluations might have meant something, but now after reading this board and others, and seeing how critical we are of ourselvs and others, I'm rethinking my opinion on coaches evaluations, is there any good way officials can rate other officials?

Several ways for us to evaluate each other.

There is an assigning system known as Arbiter which your Association can buy and use online. It has many functions related to administration of an association but also has a feature that permits officials to evaluate each other on line.


There are any number of web-based forms which an association can use to permit members to submit evaluations on officials.

Members can be permitted to submit written evaluations on each other in a "suggestion box" type set up.

Or some members of the group can be designated and trained as observers and do game observations.

I have mixed feelings on coaches' evaluations. First, most coaches don't know rules very well and mechanics even less. But, they can tell if an official can communicate and handle the game. I think we should look at the big picture in coaches' evaluations. Last year we sent out cards to coaches that they would receive on the Monday after the Friday game so that they would have a "cooling off" period. We gleaned two consistent points from the coaches that they saw as areas needing improvement: (1) communication; (2) rules knowledge. We threw out the occasional cheap shot, etc. and looked at the trend in our results. This year we made those two areas an emphasis in our association and I think we are better for it.

My advice is to look at the big picture (consensus if you will) of the evaluations that you get from coaches and act on those items. I think coaches can give us valuable feedback if we throw out the garbage and look at the big picture. In my profession and in my avocation of officiating I like to use the term "feedback" rather than evaluation if possible. Feedback gives the process a more positive look to it and we view it that way now.

As we have stated, how can you glean rules knowledge from coaches "feedback"? As I, and many others have stated, coached do not know the rules so taking away that I need to improve my rules knowledge my a coaches feedback is not something I am willing to do. As Rich said so well, these guys know little if nothing about what we do and how we do it. They should focus on coaching the game and not worrying about what we do.

Neither in Tennessee where I am now, nor in South Carolina, where I was until 3 years ago, do coaches evaluate officials. In SC, there was a rating system that included officials evauations and test score, that determined how far you went in the playoffs. I'm still not clear on the Tennessee system, but I think your local association nominates you and the state decides somehow. After having 3 state finals games in SC, I have only had one playoff game in Tennessee. Of course, the first year I was in Tennessee, I continued to work my Friday night games in SC, so I have really only had one full year in Tennessee.

In Indiana, the coaches are asked to vote on or around week 7 (until this year they received a paper listing but this year it was online). The "ballot" includes all the crews in the state that applied for the playoffs. The coaches are asked to rate (on a scale of 1-5) the crews that have worked their games the past 2-3 years. There is no other feedback on this vote. There is nothing that verifies the crews they voted for actually worked their games. There's no requirement that they have to vote for every crew that worked for them. There's not even a requirement that they have to vote! (participation was up to 94% this year so online definitely helped)

Because of this system some crews get 80-100 votes and others get 8-10. You don't find out until the final week of the season if you have a playoff game (Indiana has an all-in tournament so almost every crew gets at least one game). Then you don't find out until the next Monday if you get a game in the next round.

After the season is over you get a list of your scores and a list of the schools that voted for you (you have to guess which schools gave you which scores). You also get a list of the average scores for all the other crews so you see where you fell.

Because of this system it's largely based on who you know rather than the quality of the crew. Officials who have been around for many years or who work in education or who officiate other sports (especially basketball) are the ones who advance beyond the first round and especially into later rounds (it's a 6-round tournament).

The Indiana Football Officials Association is working with the Indiana Football Coaches Association and the IHSAA to change the system but it will probably take time. They did develop a separate feedback form this year to get specific feedback from coaches on things like appearance, rules knowledge, game administration and mechanics. I believe the intent is to try to evolve this form into the voting as long as coaches are involved.

I don't have an issue with coach's evaluating officials. The feedback could be valuable. The fact that your playoff fate rests on it is a little disconcerting.

In Ohio we have an even more convaluted system designed to be so inclusinve that none of it has any impact. Now the system has five components

1.Coaches-They are to vote on each position in each game. The officials do not have access to the voting results until 99 games are voted on. Based on my current avereage varsity schedule, I should get this meaningful feedback in the year 2015. Coaches are not paying attention to what we are doing. They only pay attention to us when it positively or negatively impacts their team.

2. Athletic Directors- In my experence they do not watch the game, and certainly do not watch the officials. Instead they are taking tickets, counting money and all of their other duties on game night.

3. The local associations- Each local association can nominate up to thirty officials. This done by a vote. The question is, when I am doing my game on Friday night how am I supposed to watch all of my fellow officials? Can't. It is a popularity contest and is divisive to our association.

4. League Assignors. They obviously can't watch six or eight games every friday. Thus where do they get their information. Yes, you guessed it. From coaches complaining.

5.State staff- Yes those guys in Columbus who most of us have never met. There are over 2,500 of us and less than 5 of them.

The weight that each component carries is not disclosed nor are we told the outcome of any of the votes other than that of our association.

The results- Here is an example. In our association we nominated three umpires. None of the three received any playoff assignments. However, another Umpire from our association who was not nominated received five games including a state championship.

Just makes me appreciate the system we have even more after reading all that. Here in beautiful San Diego, CA our assignment sec decides who gets what games. There are some requirements for each level of playoff that must be met, from number of years on a crew to past playoff experience to our ratings (which we do on each other), and the picks are approved by the current President of the assoc (I've never heard of the Pres dumping someone the sec "nominated" but it could happen). We do get coach "ratings" in the form of comment cards during the season, but they are really more of an instructional tool than actually deciding who goes where in the playoffs. I suppose if a coach was pretty vehement in his dislike of a certain crew or official, the sec would avoid placing that crew or official on that coach's game, but that's about it. I can't even fathom the level of "intrigue" you guys go thru with some of your systems.

Believe it or not, SOME coaches know the rules or at least some specific rules. I have seen some of the situations and the coaches were right and the official was wrong. They have legitimate questions sometimes and we must respond to those questions. I am not quite willing to believe that ALL of our officials know ALL of the rules and apply them correctly ALL of the time. If they did, they wouldn't be signing on to this forum.

As for me, I haven't quite got the entire rule book memorized so I AM willing to improve my rules knowledge every year. For those of you who have it memorized, congratulations!

We often hear "I can't believe you made that call. I'll make sure you get a '1' vote for the playoffs." Many wing officials are afraid to be too strict on enforcing sideline decorum because they feel it will negatively affect their score. It's really not a healthy environment and most coaches don't like it either. They have more important things to do than evaluate the crew. As hard as our job is at least our livelihood doesn't depend on it. If a coach makes enough mistakes, he's fired!

I never said I know all of the rules nor have I said not a single coach knows any of the rules. The majority don't know enough to be rating my preformance on the field; that I know for sure. As far as officials go, with 4 or 5 men out there we get it correct 99.9999% of the time. Sure, there is the time when something is admisistered wrong or interperted incorrectly, none of us on the field are perfect.

I don't think your assessment of officials signing on to this forum has any bearing on ones rules knowledge. Most come here to IMPROVE their rules knowledge and share their on field experiences with other officials. Comments like that only bolster my optnion that coaches know little of what we do and the time we put in to become officials and master our profession.

As a wing official you do feel a certain amount of pressure to not offend a coach. I posted earlier this year about a USC that I threw on a coach for taunting an opposing player. Fortunately, that happened after the post season vote, but that should never have to enter your mind. If you have conduct that need to be puinished the last thing you should be thinking is "do I really want to do this, it might cost us advancing in the post season". As much as I hate to say it that is something that will always be in the back of my mind as I work the sideline.

Smiley,

I have worked in Tennessee 25 years. I am not 100% certain the following information is correct, but I believe it is.

When I first started, the local associations would let the State know who they recommended for playoff games, and the State would assign officials to the games. We would receive a letter from the State on Monday telling us where to go that Friday. I often worked more than one round during this period.

The method of assigning games has changed in the past few years, but I do not know exactly when the change occurred. Now, the State assigns games to the local associations, and the local associations assigns the games to the officials.

Who works the games depends on the philosophy of the local associations. Some work the same officials every week. Others spread the games over all the qualified officials. My association is one that spreads the wealth. We rarely get more than one game unless we are going to work a final or semi-final. If we will have a semi, we will work the second round. If we are going to have a final, we will work the quarter-finals.

The change resulted in less playoff games for me, but that is OK. Our younger officials know that if they work hard, develop good mechanics, and display excellent rules knowledge and application, they can get a playoff game early in their career (third or fourth year). This incentive helps us retain good officials and also helps us recruit transfers. Almost every year, we get two or three new officials with high school varsity experience, and about every other year, we get someone with college experience.

Are you going out Friday? I will be at Springfield.

Thanks Blue for the explanation. How and when do you know if you will be getting a semi-final or final?

I am going to Loudon Friday.

A few years ago NASO published an evaluation form that was simply questions a coach would answer.

My idea for using evaluation forms to solicit "meaningful" feedback from coaches would use a series of questions. Questions like, "did the official properly communicate with you during the game?", "Do you believe the official exercised proper judgement in making his rulings?", "Did the official make a call that affected the outcome of your game?", etc.

By using a technique of weighting questions and in some cases correlating questions such as if the coach feels the official affected the outcome of the game, then, other questions would be weighed accordingly.

Coaches by nature are biased, they are human. Society has made winning an all-important element and if they want to keep coaching thay want officials who make those wins possible, or, so thay think. But they can offer great feedback to officials but that feedback should not be used to determine an official's level of performance.

Since Indiana has an all-in playoff system there are nearly as many games in the first round of the playoffs as there are every other week of the season (there are some byes so there are a few fewer games). Not every crew applies for the playoffs for a variety of reasons but most do. I believe the number this year was 156 crews for 152 first round games. That means almost every crew gets a first round game and thus almost every new official gets a playoff game his first year. We are also assigned by crew and not by position. With a few rare exceptions you have to work one round to get to the next round. There are 80 second round games, 40 third round games, etc. The number of working crews drops by half each week.

If a coach used this line...

"I can't believe you made that call. I'll make sure you get a '1' vote for the playoffs."

...there would be an immediate 15 yard USC tacked on. It's right up there with "you'll never work here again" or "you're through in this conference."

My crew got blackballed from a conference after I gave a USC to a coach who ran out to the hashmarks to argue a spearing ejection last season. My only regret looking back was not tossing the idiot when he tried to continue his nonsense at halftime.

Oh well, my schedule's full. And live and learn.

you say live and learn, i'm just curious if there was anything you could have done to avoid being blackballed. I'm just curious because I'm sure this happens more often than I would like to believe. I would like to avoid being blackballed, but I also don't want to become a " :( " out on the field

Joe

In my case, I was told around week eight I would be working a final unless I did something to disqualify myself. They wanted to make sure I held that weekend open. I did not know which game it would be until that week. The game we worked was determined by who was playing. We could not work a game containing a team we had worked that year. We do not have a final this year. We had one in '03 and '05.

As far as semi's, we do not know until that week. You can just about bet that, if you work week one, you might work week three but you will not work a semi. If you work week two, you MIGHT get a semi, but not necessarily. We will have three crews out next week, and one of them will get a semi.

Remember that all of this is for my association. Others might do things differently.