USFA Election 2008 Debate Question #3: Referee Development

[epeemike81]

The USFA in recent years has done a good job of referee creation, but a poor job of systematic referee development. That is to say, many more referees have taken the test and been certified, but identifying talent and nurturing it to develop high level referees has been hit or miss. In addition, there are not adequate methods for dissemination of changing interpretations from the few international referees to the rest of the cadre. This is an especially egregious problem in Sabre. This creates a situation where calls are significantly different at domestic events than international events and makes it significantly harder to train our elite athletes correctly.

If elected, how would you change and improve the referee development process in order to improve the quality of domestic refereeing and create a more robust pipeline for the creation of international referees?

-m

[Mr Epee]

1. Age limit referees - bring in line with FIE standards.

2. Pay people enough to justify their time and effort.

3. Pay them quickly and when promised.

4. Provide a detailed contract between referees and the organization.

Referee conditions continue to drive quality individuals away.
This forces the organization to dip repeatedly from the bottom of the barrel.

[Chuck]

What exactly are the FIE standards for referees?

[epeemike81]

What exactly are the FIE standards for referees?

IIRC, you're forcibly retired at 60.

-m

[ivlobane]

What exactly are the FIE standards for referees?

no 11 Year old children telling a 45+ year old coach with international results to leave the area under threat of black card.

[KD5MDK]

1. Age limit referees - bring in line with FIE standards.

2. Pay people enough to justify their time and effort.

3. Pay them quickly and when promised.

4. Provide a detailed contract between referees and the organization.

Referee conditions continue to drive quality individuals away.
This forces the organization to dip repeatedly from the bottom of the barrel.

I don't think this answers the question.

1) There are relatively few referees who are superannuated, and most of the ones currently being hired are perfectly competent.* Forcibly retiring some would open up more opportunities for younger referees to work at higher levels, but it wouldn't do a thing for making the be BETTER referees.

2) That would be nice, but fencing is a manpower intensive sport. Fencers already complain about high tournament costs. The capacity to balance demand for warm bodies to fill the strips and the ability to pay them is a difficult question.

3) That would be very nice, but again doesn't do anything for making referees better.

4) Again with not being clear on how someone actually gets better through this.

You seem to be saying the problem with referees is the smart and competent people quit or never join because of the poor conditions, and so we have to hire less qualified people instead.

The problem that epeemike81 is asking about is how perfectly smart and intelligent people who are serving as referees can be trained and supported to increase their skills.



* I avoid using absolutes to prevent being drawn into discussions of specific individuals.

[oiuyt]

IIRC, you're forcibly retired at 60.

There's also a minimum age of, I believe, 20.

-B

[IHateMrPotatohead]

There's also a minimum age of, I believe, 20.

-B

Due to recent expeirences, I think this might be a good idea.....or something like it. Hey, you have to be 13 to fence in senior events, why don't you have to be 13 to ref?

[Greg_D]

Here's a link to our proposal for referee development.

http://usfanominees.com/proposals/referee-development/

Greg

[IHateMrPotatohead]

Boo....I have to spread rep around before giving it Greg_D again.

oh well......you get hypothetical rep! That link is very helpful. How long do you anticipate it taking to implement all those plans?

[KD5MDK]

That looks extremely impressive and I look forward to it.

[Peach]

Boo....I have to spread rep around before giving it Greg_D again.

oh well......you get hypothetical rep! That link is very helpful. How long do you anticipate it taking to implement all those plans?

Repped him for you.

[Mr Epee]

I don't think this answers the question.

It will eventually.

1) There are relatively few referees who are superannuated, and most of the ones currently being hired are perfectly competent.* Forcibly retiring some would open up more opportunities for younger referees to work at higher levels, but it wouldn't do a thing for making the be BETTER referees.

I'll assume that we can agree that experience is a key element in development. So, my second assumption is that you've answered your own question.

2) That would be nice, but fencing is a manpower intensive sport. Fencers already complain about high tournament costs. The capacity to balance demand for warm bodies to fill the strips and the ability to pay them is a difficult question.

It's not only nice. It's necessary. This should be a high priority. Currently, the largest line expense for referee hiring is travel. That may be a place to start. It may also involve the restructuring of competitions.

3) That would be very nice, but again doesn't do anything for making referees better.

Also related to item #2, the basic expectation is that referees should be people who possess good judgment. The number of people who possess good judgment AND can justify using the majority of their vacation time to board planes, share hotel rooms, and perform the duties/receive the abuses of a referee in exchange for pittance wages which will be payed (hopefully) at an indefinite time in the future.... are few. This situation greatly reduces the pool of people from which referees can be developed. It also practically begs that the referee corp will be comprised of misfits and social retards.

4) Again with not being clear on how someone actually gets better through this.

Disappointment is the result of misplaced expectations. A formal contract allows for more accurate expectations on both sides. It allows people to understand more fully what they are getting themselves into at the start. As a result, they can make more informed decisions regarding their involvement. In summary it's a tool against disgruntlement.

You seem to be saying the problem with referees is the smart and competent people quit or never join because of the poor conditions, and so we have to hire less qualified people instead.

This is often the case. Yes.

[HDG]

Here's a link to our proposal for referee development.

http://usfanominees.com/proposals/referee-development/

Greg

Excellent. Might need a bit of push to develop more examiners for the Division-level part of the plan.

[epeemike81]

Here's a link to our proposal for referee development.

http://usfanominees.com/proposals/referee-development/

Greg

Thanks, Greg. This looks very promising.

T? your plans?

-m

[dekko]

This one is very interesting and I am glad Mike brought it up for discussion.

I have been reffing national events since ’95 and have seen many refs at every level come and go. For some background, refs used to get $40 a day, $50 for those with FIE ratings, and it was very difficult to get other expenses paid, parking for example. Christine has done an amazing job taking care of refs, and national events in general, and when the pay scale for refs was finally approved and implemented that was nice but by no means the biggest complaints by refs.

Mike mentioned reffing quality… Most national event are very busy and there seems to be little done to help refs at these events due to how busy everyone is to get things done sooner rather than later and the fact that coaches don’t want a ‘trainee’ reffing their bout, many refs that could be good or great are not given a chance or given one chance and when the losing fencers coach complains they never get another shot, I have seen it happen many times. Then the flip side happens, the really good refs, especially in saber, are used for 2-3 flights of pools then all the DEs they can possibly be assigned and they get burned out quicker due to so much reffing and coaches and fencers yelling or arguing with them…most have a short shelf life and stop reffing leaving even fewer to ref at every level and the cycle continues.

There was a time when the D2 and D3 events were to be training grounds for new refs and ‘prospects’ could be given the chance do bouts deeper in events to see if they could handle the situation, even though the high level usually wasn’t there yet, they could get gold medal bout experience then move up from there. Now coaches have, apparently, convinced some FOC folks that the D2 and D3 events are important for fencer development to have more elite fencers and now if a prospect is used in a gold medal bout the coach, if nothing else, usually, asks why that person is being used instead of more qualified refs in the room because they don’t want their fencer blah blah blah. I thought that’s want the D2/D3 events were for.

The mention of the ref’s course was made. Right now there are 24-26(?) in the US who can give the ref’s course. You can draw a line from Louisiana to Nebraska to Michigan to Philly and there is no one south or east of that line who is allowed to give this course. I did email Bill Oliver directly and mentioned that there are at least 5 people in the SE who have the experience (fencing and reffing), the ability and the willingness to teach this course but I was told we would not be allowed to and that they would not be adding folks who could do this. That is a huge area of the country that has many who wish to learn to ref and get ratings but are summarily ignored by the FOC. I am not suggesting that the SE would have the next crop of Olympic refs hit the world level but the SE certainly could provide a number of years, over the next few years, at many levels to help everyone, especially the fencers.

Bottom line, Mike’s post brings up one of the top three concerns, or should be, we have in US Fencing and this should be a bigger topic for people to pay attention to as the new people take over, whom ever they may be.

[seak]

There is someone in Baltimore.

The biggest issue is getting someone from an 8 to a national level ref, if there isn't someone in club who can help, or people in the division who are around at that level to help with ref development, and interested in it.

[peet]

Here's a link to our proposal for referee development.

http://usfanominees.com/proposals/referee-development/

Greg

This is a very excellent plan!

If I may suggest a couple additions:

1.

Sectional: Each section will be encouraged to appoint an individual to act as the point person for referee development.

In sections that are particularly large (geographically), it might be a good idea to encourage and provide support for the establishment of more than one of these individuals, so that they can have a more continuous, ongoing effect on referee development in their section. In a large section (i.e. Rocky Mountain and Pacific NW), if there is only one such person, the only time 90% of the section's potential referees will see this person is at the sectional championships, which are often sparsely attended. If part of this person's job to run the referee seminar, it would be very good to provide a geographical spread of these people that sectionally based distribution doesn't cover.

2. Which reminds me of another thought: The proposal says a lot of great things about developing referees, but the same issues apply to developing Certified Referee Instructors. I think the USFA needs to take a more active, systematic approach to creating new Instructors. The process would likely be almost identical to the very successful efforts that have created many new referees in recent years. Perhaps the FOC should run a "train the trainers" class once a year, or once every two years. The requirements to be eligible to teach the official referee seminar were tightened a few years ago, which was probably a good thing, but that has the effect of shortening the list of potential instructors. We need to do something positive to counteract that effect and grow the list of instructors.

3.

National: Members of the Referee Development Committee (RDC) will work with Head Referees at all NAC’s and Summer Nationals to provide senior referees who will be able to mentor and give feedback to newer developing referees (generally those with ratings of 4 and below).

This is a great idea which has already been implemented to some degree (I even had the very interesting experience of mentoring some newer refs once). But why limit it to new referees? How about we do the same thing with top refs (1s and 2s) mentoring the intermediate refs (3s, 4s, 5s)? Currently, the process of growing an intermediate ref into a high level ref is just as ad hoc as it was to initiate a new ref before the current process (the seminar etc) was put in place. (yes, this issue is near and dear to me )

The "Weapon Specific Advanced Seminars" would be great for this, but direct feedback such as is available when (for example) a 1 shares a pool with a 3 or 4, would also be invaluable.



-p

[whtouche]

Due to recent expeirences, I think this might be a good idea.....or something like it. Hey, you have to be 13 to fence in senior events, why don't you have to be 13 to ref?

I don't think the age of referees is nearly as important as their competence. If a 13 year old kid has the maturity and the skill to handle situations that a nationally rated referee should be expected to handle, then they should be allowed to do it. I think we can agree that such a situation is rare, so just don't let people who can't handle it put themselves in that situation.

I think there are many instances of referees with ratings which are ridiculous in the context of their ability. I think the system for increasing ratings should be more transparent, and there should be some mechanism in place (if it doesn't already exist) of downgrading peoples ratings. I also think it's important for, and I believe this trend has started already, for the people in charge of such ratings and referees in general to be more cognizant of desiring ratings which more accurately reflect a refs abilities.

[epeemike81]

I don't think the age of referees is nearly as important as their competence. If a 13 year old kid has the maturity and the skill to handle situations that a nationally rated referee should be expected to handle, then they should be allowed to do it. I think we can agree that such a situation is rare, so just don't let people who can't handle it put themselves in that situation.

yep. The increased regionalization of referee development proposed by the USFA Nominees will hopefully lead to a slightly higher (and more importantly, more uniform) bar for referees before they end up refereeing at NACs.

-m