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State of officiating

Started by POWERCAT PRIDE, November 26, 2018, 01:45:23 pm

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POWERCAT PRIDE

Are there any steps being taken by AAA or AOA or even Brodell to improve officiating in Arkansas?  While the majority of the games I watched this year in 6A were officiated well, there were still some blatant examples of crews being over their head, too old and out of shape to keep up, or just not mechanically sound.  Thoughts?

arreferee

Quote from: POWERCAT PRIDE on November 26, 2018, 01:45:23 pm
Are there any steps being taken by AAA or AOA or even Brodell to improve officiating in Arkansas?  While the majority of the games I watched this year in 6A were officiated well, there were still some blatant examples of crews being over their head, too old and out of shape to keep up, or just not mechanically sound.  Thoughts?

Nothing below is meant to be a knock at anyone with the AAA or AOA.  I have friends in many other states and Arkansas isn't the only state facing problems.

Books could be written about the issues facing officiating (nationwide), but I'll try to keep it short.

I've been out of high school officiating for quite a while now, but from the high school officials I'm still in touch with, the short answer to your above question is "No."  They say there is very little training being offered to high school football officials right now.  If I remember correctly, for the high school officials who are division 1 (certain number of years experience and/or certain number of games under their belts), they are required to go to a statewide clinic every other year.  This clinic lasts around 4 hours on a Saturday.  For officials who are not yet division 1, they are required to attend the clinic every year.  With that said, I'm curious as to how much push back the AOA would receive if they started requiring a yearly clinic that was all day...especially since most of the officials in the state have never had to do that.

I don't know if the lack of training is due to lack of funds, lack of initiative, lack of attendees, something else, or a combination of some (or all) of these.  I do know that there are very few clinics (outside of the mandatory AOA clinic) in Arkansas currently.  I only know of 1 for certain, but there could be some I don't know about.  I know of a few guys who have tried to put on a clinic in the past but had trouble getting officials to attend.  By and large, the high school football officials in Arkansas don't want to attend clinics.  I think part of this is because they've never been to a truly good, quality clinic.  And, just like in many other areas, the ones that want to attend the clinics are the ones that need the help the least.  The ones that need the most help have no desire to try and get better. 

Arkansas is in a situation that many other states are also in.  Finding new, young officials is getting harder and harder.  A good friend of mine and I have had many conversations about the reasons behind this.  We believe that there are many reasons.  Some of these are:

1. Work demands today are very different than they were 20-40 years ago.  Many young professionals are required to work whenever necessary.  I see this where I work.  Many places won't let people take off early to officiate games.
2. It's not worth the amount of time and dedication it takes to make $100 on a Friday night.
3. It's not worth the amount of abuse they get from some coaches.  I know of a few and have heard of several others who started and then quit after a few years because of this.
4. Young people today think they should start officiating this year and be working 7A games by next year and a state championship game in 3 years.  I worked 5-7 years of 2A, 3A, 4A ball to get to that level (I was fortunate to be able to move quicker than most).  They don't have the patience.  They get frustrated and quit.
5. Without a good system of recruitment and mentorship, new officials don't get the number of games they need to improve.  They sign up and have trouble finding games because they aren't connected with other officials in their area.
6. Some older officials aren't willing to step aside to let a new official work pee-wee or junior high because they want the money.  The ones who don't want to work pee-wee and junior high anymore typically don't want to go out to watch new officials and help them get better.  I'm as guilty of this as anyone.
7. It's hard to find potential new officials.  I can't tell you how many people have asked me how I got started.  It's not something they ever thought of.  We need to get information out there. 

We have a very aging populations of officials in Arkansas.  In the next 5-10 years, we could be in a very dire situation when it comes to finding enough officials to cover the games each week.  I have a feeling we will see high school games being played on Thursdays and Fridays each week just to make sure we have officials to cover them. 

I don't know what the solution to the problems are.  I have many ideas that might help, but I think it's going to take some trial and error to find the right solutions.  If you have any suggestions, please post them here.  I don't know if anyone from the AAA reads this forum, but it never hurts to try.

I don't know if this answers your question or not.  If not, please let me know.  And, for others out there reading this, please ask other questions on this topic that might help with the potential issues we are facing.

football_referee

Arreferee you hit the nail on the head. Since we came up in the same era. I got to move up faster.

When we started you had to work  you came in as a d5 official which was the lowest rank of official. And you had to be a D1 official to work playoffs. Some time I think they would chose a d2 official if no d1 were available but I was told that there had better not be a d1 setting home during the playoff if one wanted to work.

It took a minimum of 7 years to go from D5 to D1 with all the requirements
I think my 2nd year. The standards were changed D5 and D4 were done away with. 
D3 D2 and D1 were and are the current rank. 
If you were a D5 you got moved to a D3 and if You were a D4 you Got moved to a D2 and if You were D2 you got moved to a D1. And the number of games you had to work dropped as well

So now instead you 7 years to make D1 you could now make it in3 years. It took me 5 years to move up.

One justification on this was officials retired and official retention and I can buy that but a trade off is officials in big games or playoff with limited experience

We live in The instant world nobody wants to put time in they want it right now. And if they don't get it right now they move on

Lack of  discipline is a big factor today. Why go out and get abused for 100. 00 on Friday night
With instant access to the world everybody see it at the top level down I want to be like XYZ coach or player in the pros and if they show there behind then it must be ok. And that goes from the pros down to peewee. But ultimately it starts at home parents think that little Johnny is going to be the next big thing pushes the kids and will do anything to get their goals accomplished

I am not in it for the money. I am in it for the love of the game. And I believe that a bunch of the older officials are in it for the love of the game and they may be hang on longer then they should because there is not enough replacements

One Jr conference I work in approved going from 4 to five men this year with the  caveat that the fifth man was new or in his first year.
And it worked great at first. But towards the end of the season with injuries and officials working other sports there were not enough to cover games. One game we had to work with 4 officials and even 1 or 2 weeks we hand to bust crews and 1 sr official and 3 to green officials worked serveral game like that

I wished I had all the answers to fix this if I did I would fix my chosen  profession (fire fighting ) we acrossed the nation have seen a decrease in volunteers or even paid fire fighters


Busman

If it continues, in five years I predict more and more varsity games to be played on Thursday or Saturday due to a shortage of officials.

Missco

It would have to be Saturdays to many Jr.high games are already on Thursday.

Rocket23

Junior high games use get moved to Mondays or Tuesdays.

arreferee

Quote from: Missco on November 27, 2018, 09:38:37 pm
It would have to be Saturdays to many Jr.high games are already on Thursday.

My guess is they would be moved to Thursdays.  I don't know of any high schools that want to compete with college football on a Saturday.  They will figure out how to play the junior high games, whether that's on a different night or kicking them off at 5:00 or 5:30 before the senior high game.  Kicking the off before the senior high game would be good for the kids.  They would have a lot more fans to watch them.

Nature Boy

Quote from: arreferee on November 28, 2018, 09:47:23 am
My guess is they would be moved to Thursdays.  I don't know of any high schools that want to compete with college football on a Saturday.  They will figure out how to play the junior high games, whether that's on a different night or kicking them off at 5:00 or 5:30 before the senior high game.  Kicking the off before the senior high game would be good for the kids.  They would have a lot more fans to watch them.

it would be tough to work a junior and then senior high with one crew at the end of Aug and into Sept.

I heard the average age for a football official in our state is like 56...........that's alarming.

Busman

LR Catholic used to do jr's at 5:00 Thursday and Sr's at 7:00 at WMS.

george7244

Quote from: arreferee on November 26, 2018, 05:15:37 pm
Nothing below is meant to be a knock at anyone with the AAA or AOA.  I have friends in many other states and Arkansas isn't the only state facing problems.

Books could be written about the issues facing officiating (nationwide), but I'll try to keep it short.

I've been out of high school officiating for quite a while now, but from the high school officials I'm still in touch with, the short answer to your above question is "No."  They say there is very little training being offered to high school football officials right now.  If I remember correctly, for the high school officials who are division 1 (certain number of years experience and/or certain number of games under their belts), they are required to go to a statewide clinic every other year.  This clinic lasts around 4 hours on a Saturday.  For officials who are not yet division 1, they are required to attend the clinic every year.  With that said, I'm curious as to how much push back the AOA would receive if they started requiring a yearly clinic that was all day...especially since most of the officials in the state have never had to do that.

I don't know if the lack of training is due to lack of funds, lack of initiative, lack of attendees, something else, or a combination of some (or all) of these.  I do know that there are very few clinics (outside of the mandatory AOA clinic) in Arkansas currently.  I only know of 1 for certain, but there could be some I don't know about.  I know of a few guys who have tried to put on a clinic in the past but had trouble getting officials to attend.  By and large, the high school football officials in Arkansas don't want to attend clinics.  I think part of this is because they've never been to a truly good, quality clinic.  And, just like in many other areas, the ones that want to attend the clinics are the ones that need the help the least.  The ones that need the most help have no desire to try and get better. 

Arkansas is in a situation that many other states are also in.  Finding new, young officials is getting harder and harder.  A good friend of mine and I have had many conversations about the reasons behind this.  We believe that there are many reasons.  Some of these are:

1. Work demands today are very different than they were 20-40 years ago.  Many young professionals are required to work whenever necessary.  I see this where I work.  Many places won't let people take off early to officiate games.
2. It's not worth the amount of time and dedication it takes to make $100 on a Friday night.
3. It's not worth the amount of abuse they get from some coaches.  I know of a few and have heard of several others who started and then quit after a few years because of this.
4. Young people today think they should start officiating this year and be working 7A games by next year and a state championship game in 3 years.  I worked 5-7 years of 2A, 3A, 4A ball to get to that level (I was fortunate to be able to move quicker than most).  They don't have the patience.  They get frustrated and quit.
5. Without a good system of recruitment and mentorship, new officials don't get the number of games they need to improve.  They sign up and have trouble finding games because they aren't connected with other officials in their area.
6. Some older officials aren't willing to step aside to let a new official work pee-wee or junior high because they want the money.  The ones who don't want to work pee-wee and junior high anymore typically don't want to go out to watch new officials and help them get better.  I'm as guilty of this as anyone.
7. It's hard to find potential new officials.  I can't tell you how many people have asked me how I got started.  It's not something they ever thought of.  We need to get information out there. 

We have a very aging populations of officials in Arkansas.  In the next 5-10 years, we could be in a very dire situation when it comes to finding enough officials to cover the games each week.  I have a feeling we will see high school games being played on Thursdays and Fridays each week just to make sure we have officials to cover them. 

I don't know what the solution to the problems are.  I have many ideas that might help, but I think it's going to take some trial and error to find the right solutions.  If you have any suggestions, please post them here.  I don't know if anyone from the AAA reads this forum, but it never hurts to try.

I don't know if this answers your question or not.  If not, please let me know.  And, for others out there reading this, please ask other questions on this topic that might help with the potential issues we are facing.
.    The reason a lot of officials don't care about attending the state meet is because of Brodell. He gets people to put on presentations then takesover during the middle of the presentation so he can be seen and heard. Most officials are tired of his crap

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