Evaluations

[M Buck]

Is it just me or is there something wrong with one official participating in a game evaluating all of the other officials officiating the game. I figure that I'm getting paid to officiate and not evaluate and just how busy am I if I have the ability to officiate and evaluate in the same game. Am I wrong? seriously, I've never heard of this in 34 years in this business.

[TXMike]

I don't see a problem with evaluating what you can.   Not sure how good it will be as you cannot take notes during the game so will have to rely on memory and general perceptions as opposed to specifics. 

[M Buck]

How can an U, doing his job, evaluate a BJ or a BJ evaluate a R, or a R evaluate a BJ or a H evaluate a L! Or vice versa. This has wrong written all over it.

[TXMike]

The B knows if the U is working the ball well.  The U knows if the B is getting to the sideline to help.  The R knows if his U, H and L are handling offside vs false start situations correctly, everyone knows if everyone else is hustling, if everyone else has a good appearance, if everyone else is communicating with each other properly as needed, etc etc etc

[M Buck]

Ok..we have a tie here 1 - 1. What do the rest of you think? Do you evaluate (written) after each game or do you see anything wrong with this?

[copedaddy]

Have to say I would prefer a third party, an eye in the sky view. Hopefully the observer knows mechanics for all positions well. We used to have this in the SWJCC and it was always a guy who was 80+ and had not been on the field in 20 years. Used to get all kinds of comments about mechanics that were years out of date.

[JasonTX]

I get more out of using HUDL than trying to evaluate in the game.  But, there are some things you can pick up on in the game.  As an R, I can see if the LJ is stopping the clock or not on first downs.  I can see if they are turning to officiate plays that go out of bounds.  Now, whether or not the Back Judge is in proper position I don't have a clue. 

[M Buck]

Jason, can you evaluate Game Management, Communication, Field Presence/Professionalism, Rules Knowledge, Mechanics/position and/or Physical Condition/Appearance but looking at a HUDL film? I still don't feel that one official can do their job on the field and have the time to evaluate every other official on the field using that criteria.

[Arbitrator]

 

As an R, I would never ever subject myself to formally evaluating my, or any other crew, in written form, that I was actively working a High School Varsity Game with.

However, if asked by my Chapter Secretary, I'd absolutely have no problem doing so provided that I'm asked to evaluate a younger group of officials, in say, a subvarsity game setting where I'm working there with them.

But in completing that written evaluation, I'd definitely incorporate usage of game film, HUDL, et. al., as well as any mental notes that I might have made, from having worked with those that I'm offering a written evaluation to! 

[JasonTX]

Jason, can you evaluate Game Management, Communication, Field Presence/Professionalism, Rules Knowledge, Mechanics/position and/or Physical Condition/Appearance but looking at a HUDL film? I still don't feel that one official can do their job on the field and have the time to evaluate every other official on the field using that criteria.

We don't have anything formal like all that.  Without having a formal evaluation program due to lack of manpower, I rely on feedback from veterans who work with newer officials on subvarsity games.  We have 100% of our schools on HUDL.  The smaller schools that don't have HUDL we provided them all a DVD and prepaid postage and we put those on HUDL.  Being that is the level that most of our new officials are at I can pinpoint some areas, specifically in their mechanics that they can improve upon. 

[James]

We don't have set crews - and have some officials every year that don't really want to be there (our teams have to provide officials for the general pool or face a monetary penalty).

It was requested that the R send in some notes about what they saw/felt about the others at the game (if we didn't have someone free to do a real evaluation).

The comments would range from - 'good or above average for their license level' to 'arrived without full equipment' or 'seems to watch the game more than officiate it'. Individual points of mechanics or rule knowledge that came up in the game might be pointed out (forgets to stop the clock after a kick), and if enough officials have the same problem, we can see that it was probably not emphasized enough in the training.

Since I haven't been a R for a few years, I don't know if this is still going on - but I think it isn't. I think the Rs tended to be fairly lazy about the feedback and not give any useful information.

[Etref]

I think where Mike is headed on this thread is the coaches evaluations are done on officials while the coaches are working the game also.

My thinking is they do not know the mechanics anyway.

[Rulesman]

Coaches know mechanics more than you think. At least, the better ones do.

[Welpe]

We don't do any kind of formal self evaluation as a crew here. I think good feedback can be gleaned from those you work with but we can't see everything.

I used to belong to an association in California that required officials to rate each other at the end of the year in order to establish the rankings for next year. This determined if officials were rated for sub varsity, varsity, playoffs, championship, etc. That always struck me as a poor way to rank officials but I'd take it over coaches picking crews.

[blindref757]

For the first time, Tyler hired an evaluator for this season.  He is supposed to give the board 10-12 evaluations this season.  The board is supposed to use this to rank crews before the playoffs.  I'll keep you updated on how this goes.

Regarding coaches evaluations, they are just not very useful.  Our crew has 5 guys that all could stand to lose about 25% of our body weight.  We should get average every week on appearance as a crew.  We tend to always get a good rating on this one, but somewhere else, they find a place to bump us down a notch or two.  Friday night, we got all 100s on ZebraWare except in Professionalism.  I like to think that professionalism is really one of the best things we do because that is what we can control.  The coach who gave us the 80 won his game by 40 points...shook our hands and told us good job after the game.  Oh, and did I mention that our dressing room was 90 degrees all night long--only room in the fieldhouse with no AC.  I think we were pretty professional for not raising hell! 

As long as the coaches are picking their referees in TX HS football, their evaluations matter...so we have to  try to make that work for us the best way we can.  You can't catch many flies with vinegar.

[The Deadman]

We don't pay a lot of attention to coaches evaluations. Usually they are predictable based on outcome of the game.

[fencewire]

Want a real joke, look at a UIL eval. 

Officials did not know the rules.   Disagree agree

[Arbitrator]

Want a real joke, look at a UIL eval. 

Officials did not know the rules.   Disagree agree

 

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, just East of I-35 in the Travis County village of Austin, some bright, over-educated  Dr. up on  Manor Road came back to his desk from having ingested some really bad lunch enchiladas, and came up with the bright idea, "Hey! We should let all of our coaches evaluate the referees who work their games! After all, who knows the game rules and the mechanics better than our coaches do?

And so the  Big Bad UIL Dr. printed himself up a massive batch of these UIL Evaluation Cards and had them distributed far and wide, to unsuspecting coaches/teachers, giving them yet more paperwork to perform by having them rate on a scale of 1 to 5 the performance of those officials, with little to no constructive criticism, other than 3 little lines in which to berate those wayward zebras, making their conscience feel so much better by putting them in their rightful place ~ under their feet.

It created fear by the officials, in that getting an unmerited "5" from some anguished losing coach or from an egotistical winning coach, could very well jeopardize the number of playoff games they received, not to even mention their officiating careers. And no one lived happily ever after!"

In my 30+ years in this beloved avocation, if there is one thing that I've learned is that coaches shouldn't grade officials. But if  Manor Road persists in this ancient practice of playing "Gotcha,", then what is wrong with officials grading coaches? How much would they appreciate that?

Let's just say that I'll gladly take my evaluations much more seriously from someone who has actually been in the heat of battle, while donning the stripes, thank you! And not from a coach or administrator with a vested interest in the game, who, in all probability, couldn't score 40 on a TASO rules test or from some  Manor Road doctorial bureaucrat who couldn't even hope to score a 5!   

[JasonTX]

I remember when coaches filled out the rating cards and mailed them in.  I went to pregame with the coach in his office and sitting on his desk was the rating card for our game and it was already filled out.  Somehow he already knew our crew was a perfect 100.