Congratulations to all the officials who worked post season in March! What an honor to be recognized for your hard work and commitment to the profession. I want to celebrate you and your success.
As you begin to think about the camps you attend this summer – is it time to reinvent yourself?
In college one of my suite mates, Robin, used to call me random. She would say I had the most random interests, jobs, and friends. Just last week I met John, and he told me I was the most random person he had ever met. I don’t believe I am random by definition, lacking a definite plan, purpose or pattern, but I believe I am passionate about a lot of things (as you know from my last blog )and I do not fear change or the unknown.
The reality is, that if John’s perception of me is that I am random, and I want to change that perception, I must understand his point of view.
Let’s consider my career path. Not yet in my 40’s, I have been COO of a commercial real estate investment company, owned a residential building business, been Publisher of an accounting technology magazine and website…
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Thanks Dave. This is a good reminder of key characteristics we should be looking for in young referees.
Check details at the bottom to sign up for Summer camp. SF Bay Area.
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It is not very often that I take a day to just relax and recoup. But occasionally one of those days arrives, and today happens to be one of them. So I am doing what so many other people do (or at least I think this is what other people do). I am watching infomercials in hopes that if I watch Tony, Tonya, and Sean long enough that I will actually lose weight and miraculously gain my six pack abs.
But today’s lesson resonated with me because it seems I am hearing it more and more. It only takes 25 minutes! For the third infomercial in a row, the commitment required is less than 30 minutes a day.
Fitness is a lifestyle and a commitment. But it is not like it requires you to work out all day every day. You can spend 30 minutes a day and truly change your body. I feel the same way about understanding and knowing the rules of our game. Very few officials have the luxury of being a referee full time as their primary profession. Most of us have additional full-time jobs AND referee 50 to 100 games per season. In addition to the floor time, we also have travel, preparation and paperwork time. So who has time to spend in the rule book?
The answer is – we all do! We all have 25 to 30 minutes a day to focus on officiating. As I have said before, if I have 30 minutes I would much rather spend it in the rule book verses watching video. Some of you are the opposite. But the fact is we need to spend time doing both. So tell me, what are you going to do in 2015 to spend 25 minutes working on rules knowledge? It’s time to stop the excuses!
You cannot lose weight by sitting on the couch watching infomercials, and you cannot get better at your rules by carrying your rule book in your bag. So next time you are waiting in the doctor’s office, having lunch alone while on the road, or sitting on the plane with no wi-fi, READ YOUR RULE BOOK!!
It only takes 25 to 30 minutes a day to start seeing improvement in you knowledge of the rules. And if you start today, I will throw in the added bonus of three jujitsu knives and a money back guarantee!! Start in the next 10 minutes and…!
Okay, maybe I need to change the channel.
This season I worked a basketball game with a young lady in her late 20’s, one whom I have seen develop as an official over the last decade. Yes, she started coming to Division I camps in her teens. She was so young and impressionable, I remember.
She and I were having a very candid locker room conversation about her career path as an official. Her story convinced me that she, like myself, is suffering the consequences of going to camp too early and too often before she was ready.
She is one of those girls that many of us love to hate. She is young, beautiful, highly intelligent, and confident. She is a lawyer full time and loves officiating part time. Yep, she could be easy to dislike. And honestly, a lot of people don’t like her. Not completely without justification, but perhaps unfairly.
She is a victim of what I call the “Don’t Be Forgotten” scare tactic placed on young officials who think one day they want to work Division I basketball. She was a young basketball player who loved the game and thought that being an official would be a great way to stay connected with the game. So she showed up at a local high school officiating camp and a Division I supervisor spotted her.
An invite to the Division I camp followed and she had her first big time Division I experience. Woo Hoo! Right? People were helpful (in part b/c she was a naive, beautiful young lady – but hey that’s besides the point, right?) and she was told she had a great future in officiating one day. And the “Don’t Be Forgotten” messaging began.
A little full of herself she spent the next couple years working and talking a big game. Though her confidence appeared on the outside, she was busting her tail to be as good as she was trying to convince everyone she was. She was putting in the time, doing as she was asked, and continued to go to camp, year after year. Now 4, 5 and 6 years later the common response in her evaluations were “She’s a good official, she’s just young.” But… (insert whiny voice here) she wasn’t young any longer. She was now 6 years into her career — but nobody could see her experience through their first impression memories.
Assignors and clinicians watched her age, but never let her grow out of that initial perception of who she was when they met her nearly 10 years ago. Now she is stagnated on the cusp of the “next level” because she is still seen as that girl from years gone by.
This young lady is victim of the “don’t be forgotten” messaging that is so many times given to young officials. She always feared being forgotten and now it continues to stall her career. Maybe she would have been better to take a couple summers off the camp circuit, going to a different coast for some of the training, or simply finding different mentors.
My take away for this lesson is that if you are a young official, you may do yourself more harm than good if you continue to attend the same camp with the same assigners and same clinicians year after year. Give yourself a break; go try somewhere else; or just take a summer off. Don’t worry about being forgotten – sometimes that is a really good thing.
To Referee the Game - You Gotta Know the Rules 