My name is Chris. I am the co-founder of the GMU fencing team, for which I currently serve as the coach, and the captain, The crazy part is that im only 20, and I am not a very accomplished fencer. I referee (alot) because I need the money and I enjoy it. Im becoming a better referee than I am fencer, by far.
So I am going to try to use this blog to document and follow my development as a referee, from local schmo, into hopefully, an international level ref...
A post in the most recent NjSux thread prompted me to write this. Not quite worthy of a thread, but im interested in hearing other people's thoughts.
In my experience, I have never been to an event with biased referees.* I find alot of people think some events tend to have biased refs, but I've never seen it to be true. I think there are 2 things that lead to problems.
1) When a club hosts an event and hires its own coaches or fencers to referee it, those refs will have a very similar [read: identical] view of RoW as the fencers from that club. This may lead to calls being made for the fencers of that club that others consistently disagree with. Its not because when you have a group of people that practice together, they tend to have a very similar view of RoW.**
Along those lines, these fencers would know the way the "refs" would call things VERY well, and might be more adjusted to the mistakes that ref is likely to make. If my clubmate has a habit of missing tight counter ripostes, I might intentionally remise my riposte, hoping he'll make that mistake. He gives it to me, and my opponent thinks he's cheating, when he isn't.
2) Thats 1 mistake I often see people make. The other is the exact opposite, but only true with fairly high level refs (not necessarily high by rating, but good solid refs.) When you ref a fencer often, you tend to learn the mistakes he makes. If I'm reffing a sabre bout that is teammate vs. guy I've never seen before, I might be more likely to see the mistakes my teammate is making, because I know the way he preps off the line, or whatever else. Its not because I'm cheating, I just know the fencer extremely well.
I find it really offensive when I hear people talk about biased refs. I've refereed a decent number of competition bouts. I've never been biased in a bout, and most of the refs I am friends with can say the same thing. There's a difference between BAD refereeing and BIASED refereeing.
*Self refereed events do not count. I have seen COUNTLESS examples of biased or otherwise ridiculous refereeing at these events. IMHO, they shouldn't exist, but I digress...
** My good friend and I tend to have a nearly identical view of refereeing, even more so then the others at our club. This often leads to the appearance of me being biased when I'm reffing his practice bouts. I give him touches that others think are theirs. Its not because I'm cheating, its just because we have an identical view of RoW...
10-05-2009 03:48 AM