Aren’t you excited about this new league? It is really causing a shake up!
Did you receive all the conference contracts you expected to receive? If you have a success story I would love to hear it!
men·tor noun
1. a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
2. an influential senior sponsor or supporter.
I have been thinking for weeks about how I should write about the topic of mentorship. The difficulty in writing is not WHAT to write about, but what NOT to write about. because I have had so many mentors in my life, and I think there are an innumerable number of countless aspects to discuss when it comes to mentorship to discuss.
Since I can’t tackle all aspects of mentorship in a single blog, I am taking this opportunity to brag on one great mentor I have had in the officiating world. I am sure he knows that I respect him, consider him a friend and value his opinion, but I am not sure I have ever told him what a valuable mentor he is to me.
Not all mentors have to be defined as such, btw!
This guy—let’s call him Dr. Bob—was one of the first commissioners to hire me to work high school basketball, both girls and boys games. Similarly to when I was a high school basketball player, the men’s basketball coaches generally felt that women officials were inferior and couldn’t keep up with the boys’ game. So it was a tough situation for a beginning referee…especially when you weren’t very good (like me at that time).
Since I loved the game, was very athletic, kept the pace, and was generally liked as a person, Dr. Bob went ahead and gave me a shot. He put me on games with partners who knew the rules much better then I and who had a lot more experience then I. And he expected these veteran officials to teach me.
This was a mentor moment I didn’t know was happening at the time.
Over the years, I have worked Dr. Bob’s junior high, high school, small college and even playoff assignments. And now, more than 15 years after he first assigned me, I work games at a higher level then he has personally ever officiated or assigned. And all along the way, Dr. Bob has given me advice, praise, criticism and opportunities. He has helped me reinvent myself for each level (reference all the prior posts on reinventing yourself). Dr. Bob has been my first call almost every time I have advanced or accomplished a particular milestone in my career. I love how proud he is when I tell him!
Mentors are always proud of your successes and are NOT afraid to tell you.
Most recently, Dr. Bob has asked me to mentor younger officials for him. (omg I was so honored to be asked!). I am most proud because I believe I have fully “arrived” in Dr. Bob’s eyes. This is where I now must strive to be as good a mentor as he was (and still is) to me.
In a commitment to become that mentor, I have created a list of five attributes I saw in Dr. Bob as a mentor that I want to make sure I mirror:
I would love to hear attributes that you admire from your mentor. I welcome your comments.
Today I came across Edmund Gaudet’s description of Average and I felt it was definitely worth sharing.
Average is what the failures claim to be when their family and friends ask them why they are not more successful?
“Average” is the top of the bottom, the best of the worst, the bottom of the top, the worst of the best. Which of these are you?
“Average” means being run-of-the-mill, mediocre, insignificant, an also-ran, a nonentity.
Being “average” is the lazy person’s cop-out; it’s lacking the guts to take a stand in life; it’s living by default.
Being “average” is to take up space for no purpose; to take the trip through life, but never to pay the fare; to return no interest for God’s investment in you.
Being “average” is to pass one’s life away with time, rather than to pass one’s time away with life; it’s to kill time, rather than to work it to death.
To be “average” is to be forgotten once you pass from this life. The successful are remembered for their contributions; the failures are remembered because they tried; but the “average,” the silent majority, is just forgotten.
To be “average” is to commit the greatest crime one can against one’s self, humanity, and one’s God. The saddest epitaph is this’ “Here lies Mr. and Ms. Average — here lies the remains of what might have been, except for their belief that they were only “average.”
–EDMUND GAUDET
Please choose to be better than average. Let me know what one action you will take today to be a better parent, employee, boss, friend or mentor. I want you to be exceptional!
Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, when interviewed by Dave Kerpen, suggests you test-drive your path when considering reinventing yourself. In the professional world this may seem impossible. But I think back to more than 30 years ago when my mother test-drove a new profession, and I have to agree that this is a GREAT suggestion for reinventing yourself.
At the time my mother test-drove a new profession, she was a rancher’s wife and mother of four children ages 8 to 18. She started teaching tumbling at the local armory. With her teaching, a great elementary school physical education coach, and a little fearlessness on my part, I became really good at power tumbling. My mom wanted to enroll me in gymnastics beyond what was available in our small town, and eventually, I competed for a really great gym located in a town about 75 miles from home. I had gym class two nights/week for three hours each night, which translated to six hours/week of “waiting” for my mother.
My mother (aka my chauffeur), was never one to sit in the car and read a book while I practiced. Instead, she decided to advance her career and education during my practice times. Mom, a fearless 40-year-old woman with no college degree, started test driving! She became an unpaid intern at a travel agency.
Over the next two years, while I worked on my glide kip, back extension to push up and handspring full off the vault, my mother learned the Sabre system’s codes for airports and hotels.
Let me assure I was not on the Olympics team and my test drive as an Olympic gymnastic ended shortly after attending one Béla Károlyi camp. And though I would no longer be making the 150 mile round trip, my mother’s test drive as a travel agent continued. A few years of training and paying a fee as a branch office, she opened her own agency. Today she has survived the airlines squeeze, the economy’s downfall, and cruise ship horror stories. She has owned her travel agency for more than 20 years.
Yay Mom (my entrepreneurial hero)!!!
Now you may be asking yourself, “How do referees test drive new careers?” Well, by using a system that I actually used early in my career and have recommended to several aspiring referees. (I just wasn’t smart enough to coin the term test drive, dang it!) Sometimes, the best way to advance to the next level is to work with those who are already there. Lucky for us, officials have the perfect system for doing that—our camp system.
I don’t believe you should go to Division I level officiating camps before you are ready. I don’t think most of those camps are designed to “get you there” or train you, but rather they are hiring camps. Face it – the people who attend are working to increase their schedule (the people already there) or to get hired (people at or slightly above your current standings and experience) and the people observing (people way ahead of you in their officiating career) are looking to hire or recommend you as someone they would work games with at that level. So I believe if you want to be hired you should go to a camp prepared to be hired. So, how exactly do you test drive?
Test drive outside your area – outside the region you want to be hired. Just like my mother did her test driving in a different community so that she would not be in competition when she decided to go out on her own, I suggest you go out of your area to attend your first camp, especially as it relates to Division I. Gain some experience, get some feedback and bring your weaknesses to light BEFORE you go to the try out camp.
The bonus of attending camps outside your area is that you may also get the benefit of finding a mentor (sneak peek at my next topic: mentorship). Now go test drive that new career! Continue sharing my posts and maybe my test drive as a blogger will turn into becoming a published author one day. I didn’t fall far from the tree, after all. I am always test driving something, just like my mother has always done
To Referee the Game - You Gotta Know the Rules 