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Post by martinc on Aug 25, 2008 19:42:51 GMT
We used to have a grading programme, levels 1-4, 4 being the top level, was based around exam results, onfield assessments and attending training, that went by the by as will the elite programme probably. We have to face the facts that we just dont have enough officials. How many games were run under the elite banner this year not many , why because you cant justify 7 man crews when we cant cover the games we have to cover now.
Whats this rubbish about camera and crowds at a game as well they cant even get a decent crowd at the bowl games the flagship event what coverage is there maybe 10 mins total on SKY and thats because one of the producers plays for Ipswich.
I did two 7 man crews this season so far neither where classed as elite games.
If we are going to do training lets do it properly, mechanics clinics, rules clinics work controled scrimmages, review game film. For all members but we cant , why cost location and availability of too few officials.
Martin #345
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Post by withtwoflakes on Aug 26, 2008 0:30:28 GMT
rubbish,i worked games in my first season at some of the top games that season. O's,blitzs,sundevils.i think it is to do with who you work with. i was very lucky to work with people like coleman,wickham and yates.also by working some of these game it help me to see what level i needed to be at when working on a high level game.so to say a new official should not work big in there first season is the great word of mr coleman "crap" What I will say is that you should count yourself lucky that you managed to get through it without any problems. Also count yourself lucky you were assigned with good people around you, such as those excellent folks you mentioned. Others have not been so lucky when they've been thrown in the deep end. I would say that the quality of the rest of the crew can certainly help carry you, but at other times you are on your own and live or die by your own calls. Let's look at other UK sports. Where would I start as a soccer referee - Premier League? Where would I start as a rugby referee - Heineken Cup? No on both counts. After some induction training and watching a few games on TV, wouldn't I be able to make the correct calls with decent Referees Assistants on the sidelines? Perhaps, but it isn't all about that - rules knowledge and mechanics knowledge is only a part of successfully running a game. As Osric said, it is about having the experience and confidence that comes from having a number of games under your belt. It is also about having the man management and presentation skills. You can't get that from a book. The only reason officials in our sport have been put out so early on the highest level games is our lack of numbers and geographical spread. Not because it is thought that they are perfectly fine to do the job. In his book "Born To Referee", NFL referee Gerry Markbreit mentions that in his first season (1956) as a member of Chicago's Central Officials Association (COA), he never even got onto the field to work a single game, he merely attended meetings. His next year (1957) he worked some JV games, and in 1958, more JV and also a Friday night Varsity High School game. In the UK due to the pressure of numbers, a rookie could easily find himself assigned to a BAFL Div 1 game within his first few games. Is our rookie training so much better than the COA that we are turning out officials who are better than Gerry Markbreit? In my opinion, in attempting to cover all the games each week (a laudable, but increasingly impossible aim as BAFL adds new teams each year), we have perhaps lost sight of the duty of care we owe to our newer members. We should regard BAFRA as a kind of Trade Union acting first and foremost in the interests of its members.
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Post by notaclue on Aug 26, 2008 11:19:16 GMT
how you can said any games in england are on the same level as game in the US is taking it a bit far. i still take it personal when people tar all rookies with the same brush.so you would have it that they work only div 2 games,all them 62 0 game 54 7 that will keep you coming back week after week.finally when they get to work a game that needs a bit of humff.they don't know what is needed from them,as they have only work piss poor game week in and week out. moreover you seam to think only rookies cock it up,i've worked games with people who have 20+ years in bafra and can balls it up guest as good as a rookie,I worked a game only a few weeks a go when one of your elite official blow a call right at one of the most critical time in the game. SO THERE.
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Post by New(ish) Ref on Aug 26, 2008 12:02:37 GMT
62-0, 54-7 sounds more like the higher level games I have done this year rather than Div 2. I have had only four relatively close games (< 20 points difference) this season, and all bar one have been Div 2 games.
We are all different, bring difference experiences of the sport to our officiating when we start out, bring different experiences of officiating, life, and many other things. There is nothing wrong with being concerned that someone may be put off early in their officiating career by a bad experience. I have seen this happen in volleyball which, like football suffers from having not enough officials, and neither sport can afford to be losing officials in this way. People need to be allowed to develop at the right pace for them, not thrown in the deep end too early, but equally not held back either.
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Post by Ed Herk on Aug 26, 2008 12:06:51 GMT
Barry, your attempt to lighten the mood is welcome (at least I think that it was that and not a serious "throwing toys out of your pram" moment).
Putting rookie officials on a 7 man crew with 5 or 6 other experienced officials certainly helps, but I agree that they must not be "thrown to the wolves" in their first 10 games - i.e. not on a Premier or Div 1 match with only 3 or 4 other officials to work with.
If we had more officials then we could look at limiting rookies to games in BAFL 2 or Youth level only, but we really don't have that luxury.
In both my professional and officiating careers I have been thrown in the deep end early on and made to sink or swim. I'm happy to say that I haven't drowned in either pool! I did have the benefit of working my first few games during the college season and alongside such esteemed individuals as Two Flakes, MartinC and the Ref Thats Left. College season is when we need the most officials so that is exactly the right time to get the new guys out there to get them up to qualifed level.
Question/s:
I worked back judge on the Division 1 bowl game during my second season - was that too early, should I not have been put on that game, should I have been limited to the Div 2 bowl at most?
As someone once said in response to a comment that you don't win team sports with "kids" - "If you're good enough, you're old enough". Some officials pick things up quicky and have a natural way, others don't and need a good few seasons and many, many hours poring over the rule book and mechanics manual before they get to the standard they should be in order to do the best games. Some officials never get there.
This is not unique to officiating - it is the same in all walks of life.
"Either you've got it or you ain't" ;D
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Post by martinc on Aug 26, 2008 12:43:26 GMT
Esteemed, is he taking the piss, or is it another way of saying old ;D
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Post by notaclue on Aug 26, 2008 13:21:58 GMT
dan, you smell. and stop sucking up to steve.you are not going to ref the div one bowl no mater much you kiss up to him. ;D
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Post by New(ish) Ref on Aug 26, 2008 14:50:35 GMT
If Dan wants to ref the Div 1 bowl, let him. It will mean one less person competing for a spot on the Premier bowl. ;D
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Post by martinc on Aug 26, 2008 17:39:12 GMT
Getting a bowl game is nice but at the end of the day its just another game why treat it any differant to any other.
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Post by The Ref That's Left on Aug 26, 2008 18:11:54 GMT
Getting a bowl game is nice but at the end of the day its just another game why treat it any differant to any other. Because it's what I work for all season. I agree that you prepare the same way for the bowl as you would for any other game but to actually get there you have to be consistant all season. (Well certainly for the Prem Bowl).
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Post by Ed Herk on Aug 26, 2008 20:01:38 GMT
Esteemed, is he taking the piss, or is it another way of saying old ;D Don't read things into what I say - you do yourself a disservice. If you want me to say "I learnt nothing from Steve, Keith and Martin" then I will, but that doesn't make it true. Barry - I don't suck/kiss up to anyone - I just try to give some honest feedback to people who I work with. That said, you're rubbish!
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Post by martinc on Aug 26, 2008 20:13:27 GMT
Esteemed, is he taking the piss, or is it another way of saying old ;D Don't read things into what I say - you do yourself a disservice. If you want me to say "I learnt nothing from Steve, Keith and Martin" then I will, but that doesn't make it true. Barry - I don't suck/kiss up to anyone - I just try to give some honest feedback to people who I work with. That said, you're rubbish! Never do
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Post by wolfman on Aug 26, 2008 20:27:12 GMT
Since Barry got his nice white hat dirty, I think he's after Dan's spot on the Div 1 bowl ;D ;D
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Post by withtwoflakes on Aug 26, 2008 20:41:52 GMT
how you can said any games in england are on the same level as game in the US is taking it a bit far. Having worked both, I consider that I am in a position to express an opinion on the matter. The point I was making was that it was toward the end of his 3rd year as a member of COA that Markbriet was assigned a High School Varsity game. Having worked and watched a number of High School Varsity games in the Mid-West, it is a standard that I would roughly equate to the best in BAFL Premier. His Association had the luxury of adequate numbers and consequently advanced their rookies at a pace that suited the individual rookie. Markbreit was (no doubt) top class and yet they did not risk his progress by pushing him into the upper levels too quickly. I ask again, is our training so much better than theirs? Or is it simply that we are more concerned about the League Schedule than we are about our own members welfare. There is a fine line between (a) throwing new guys in at the deep end with the sharks and (b) wrapping them in cotton wool. Don't mistake my attitude about the deep end. The only way to really learn and progress as an official is to work games, but the right level of games at the right time (for them personally). And how can you tell if they are ready for the higher level games? By watching them work the lower level games. Do they hustle and work a dull 62-0 or 54-7 Div 2 game like it is the SuperBowl? Or do they let the level of the game and the one sided score drag their performance down to a mediocre level? Are you taking my posts as some form of personal attack on your competence? Why would you do that? I'm not holding a brush, I'm not tarring anyone, least of all you. In fact I have been a supporter of fast tracking promising talent into the Elite program. But the way to identify that talent is not to stick rookies onto the top level games simply because of where they live and how short of officials we are on any particular week. Rather it is to let them work their way up to that level at their own pace. No rookie is good enough that his "own pace" is 5 games. Sorry but this makes no sense at all. I cant predict the score of a game anymore than anyone else. Equally I can't predict what officiating challenges will occur in that game. What I do know is that the pace of the game will probably be a little slower on a Div 2 game and that a newer official may have a slightly easier time of it to make his judgement calls. In addition there is the safety aspect. I've assessed several games recently and the one thing that has jumped out at me is officials movement. Some guys are in the wrong place at the wrong time and risk their own safety. Certainly at the top level games the play is on top of you faster than in a lower level game, and you have less time to react. I don't want to see any of our new people getting injured. On a personal note, the most enjoyable games I've worked the last 2 seasons have been some really close Div 2 games. The handful of Premier games have been so-so at best. They are not MY Elite officials. I'm sure any of them, myself included, can make an error. But it is statistically likely that the more experienced officials will make fewer errors. Having hundreds of games of experience to draw on, having years of experience of their own or crew mates errors to recall and resolve not make again - this all helps.
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Post by ScotiaRef on Aug 26, 2008 22:23:35 GMT
Quite an active discussion going on in here. Hope a fight doesn’t break out ;D Maybe this will start it !!!
There are a lot of excellent points made in this thread and it’s good to read the thoughts of Officials on Training and the Elite Programme in general.
Almost all BAFRA’s activities are unfortunately restricted by our lack of numbers. Take training new recruits for example. We actually have quite a good Induction Training Program in place, however it’s almost impossible to implement. Why? Because we don’t have enough people spread throughout the UK willing or able to dedicate the time it takes to train rookies properly. I would love to be in a position where all new members are given the start they deserve rather than be fast tracked through the system. It’s unfair on the Rookie as well as the teams. I appreciate the standard of games in this country is well short of that in the USA however that does not give us the right to accept a lesser standard and diminish our role to just a run around the park on a Sunday. I will continue to try and bring people into our Association using all the tools available. Steve’s recent comments on this subject were taken on board and we will endeavor to focus more on proper induction rather than “let’s get them on the field to cover games”
Training in general is moving forward. 5 years ago we had one event, the Annual Convention and we couldn’t get people to attend. Only 11 showed up that year. This year we had 60. We will also have had another 6 training events throughout the UK in 2008. It may not be perfect but the impetus is there to at least try and move things forward.
The Elite Programme is obviously a very emotive subject. I agree it has not ticked all the boxes and is far from perfect. I do however firmly believe that we need it in place and should strive to make it better. Our lack of numbers again hinders our activities and abilities to deliver the programme.
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