hoops902
Senior Associate
Joined: Dec 22, 2010 13:21:29 GMT -5
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Post by hoops902 on Jun 10, 2019 8:06:08 GMT -5
Here you can be certified to coach without being a teacher. The biggest problem sports are having here is a lack of officials. It's not hard to get in to, but parents knowing the rules better than the officials are causing officials to quit or retire.As they probably should really. If you don't actually know the rules, you probably shouldn't be officiating. We see this a lot in baseball right now. We get officials who umpire baseball for high school and they want to make a little extra money in the summers so they umpire little league. Except they have absolutely no idea how the little league rules differ from high school baseball rules. So then it turns into in-game changes of the rules, which means in-game changes of how the kids have to play...and they're not really old enough to make significant changes like that on the fly. Same with basketball. Different age groups allow different things like full court pressing, stealing a ball while someone dribbles, stealing passes, etc. Occasionally you get an official who doesn't know any of this, and it turns into a wild free for all. Heck, in a lot of cases I've been there when the coaches talk to the officials before the game and tell them what all the rules are for that age group, and the officials just say "that's not real basketball, I'm not calling that".
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TheOtherMe
Distinguished Associate
Joined: Dec 24, 2010 14:40:52 GMT -5
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jun 10, 2019 13:41:18 GMT -5
I was being facetious. The parents do not know the rules better than the officials. All they know is that their kid never commits any kind of infraction in their eyes and the stuff they yell at the officials should not happen. The parents should be tossed out.
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hoops902
Senior Associate
Joined: Dec 22, 2010 13:21:29 GMT -5
Posts: 11,978
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Post by hoops902 on Jun 10, 2019 13:57:46 GMT -5
I was being facetious. The parents do not know the rules better than the officials. All they know is that their kid never commits any kind of infraction in their eyes and the stuff they yell at the officials should not happen. The parents should be tossed out. Must be nice if you have competent officials enough to know the rules. In our rather small town, we often have parents who know the rules better than an individual official. The coaches nearly always know the rules better, and any parent remotely involved tend to as well. Just in the last month or so at baseball games (little league and a HS game) I've seen officials: -Not understand that if you swing at a pitch and the ball hits you, it's a strike, not a HBP -Not understand that a foul bunt on a 2nd strike isn't an out -Not understand that a force out behind a runner means the base ahead needs to be a tagged out -Not know when the little league players are allowed to leave the base to steal/lead-off and had to ask coaches -Not know in little league if you're allowed to run on a dropped 3rd strike -Not know in little league whether they max out at batting the entire order, or a certain # of runs per inning These are umpires who regularly work HS games. They're registered, they've passed tests (though the standards are kind of low IMO). I see a LOT of parents arguing subjective stuff (my kid didn't foul him, the tag was late, etc), which is a different animal than knowing the rules. In my experience, parents seem to be FAR more knowledgeable about the actual rules than officials when they speak up...particularly when it comes to games below High School level. Officials at lower levels also seem to have very little issue with simply making up their own rules, and acknowledge to everyone that they're making up their own rules because those are the rules they like and think are best. Honestly, I think if I was a baseball umpire, I'd probably be embarrassed enough to quit/retire if during a game I had both coaches showing me in the rule book how I don't know what I'm talking about. When both coaches agree that the rule is crystal clear and the umpire is wrong, that's not a good sign for an umpire.
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hoops902
Senior Associate
Joined: Dec 22, 2010 13:21:29 GMT -5
Posts: 11,978
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Post by hoops902 on Jun 10, 2019 14:08:31 GMT -5
Here you can be certified to coach without being a teacher. The biggest problem sports are having here is a lack of officials. It's not hard to get in to, but parents knowing the rules better than the officials are causing officials to quit or retire. Hmm - seems like some knowledgeable parents are willing to criticize the efforts of the current officials, but aren’t willing to step up and become officials themselves. It’s easy to criticize from the sidelines. But, volunteers (I doubt that very many of the officials are in it for the money, so they are really volunteering their free time) don’t put up with criticism, justified or not, for very long. Maybe the rules experts need to be encouraged to volunteer their expertise to support the athletic programs their kids participate in, or be encouraged to keep their opinions about the quality of the officiating to themselves so that the kids programs don’t disappear due to lack of officials. I think you're talking about very different things when comparing people who are volunteering to officiate for free, and those who are being paid to do a job (and the level of scrutiny each can reasonably be held to). None of our leagues around here have volunteer officials though (save for some self-officiated things like adult softball where players from the prior game officiate the game after). We have nobody just randomly volunteering their free time to officiate though. They all get paid. And honestly, I've seen very different fan/parent/coach behavior when comparing paid and registered officials, and when an official no-shows or is sick at the last minute and they have to pluck someone from the stands and hope they can do their best.
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