This change was prompted for a couple of reasons:
- It is a well known fact that being a good official requires time on deck. While we can all read and pass tests from a theoretical standpoint, there is a significant difference between knowing the rules and effectively and proficiently administering these rules in a fair and consistent basis.
- While we have always met the minimum requirements for officials staffed at our meets (though we had a couple of close calls in October), we have not consistently put anywhere near an ideal number of officials on deck to officiate our AMS sanctioned meets. Unfortunately, we don't have enough officials to allow us to require fewer minimum officials sessions from our officials. All to often, it falls to a small minority of officials to "come to the rescue" to bail out meets with too few officials.
For these reasons, effective September 1, 2014 (yes, retroactive to the beginning of this Short Course season), AMS Officials will be required to work twelve (12) sessions at AMS sanctioned meets. Eight of these sessions can be from sessions worked at the Official's home club hosted meet(s). The reporting year for sessions worked will now be September 1 through August 31.
An exception to this rule exists for AMS Officials whose clubs are located more than sixty (60) miles from downtown Pittsburgh. If an official's home club is outside of the 60 mile radius, their 12 sessions requirement can be satisfied at any USA Swimming sanctioned meet. All sessions worked, however, must be entered into USA Swimming's Officials Tracking System (OTS).
This was not an easy decision to make and not one that was made without proper vetting and ample discussion. We realize that we're asking more from our volunteer officials but, in the end, it's a better solution for AMS. We believe that this revised requirement will be beneficial to the swimmers and coaches (better trained and qualified officials at meets), AMS meet hosts (more officials on deck) and AMS Officials (more experienced, confident officials on deck). That's a win all around.
This was not an easy decision to make and not one that was made without proper vetting and ample discussion. We realize that we're asking more from our volunteer officials but, in the end, it's a better solution for AMS. We believe that this revised requirement will be beneficial to the swimmers and coaches (better trained and qualified officials at meets), AMS meet hosts (more officials on deck) and AMS Officials (more experienced, confident officials on deck). That's a win all around.
If you have any questions, please contact me at bob.mermelstein@gmail.com.
Some questions have been raised that I’d like to address about this rule change...
ReplyDeleteCan you please elaborate on the rationale for implementing this change at this late point in the short-course season? There are many officials and teams that only participate during the short-course season, so it is possible that some officials would have attempted to work more sessions during the first half of the season, had they know that this rule was to change.
The issues which led to this decision have been discussed for a couple of years. We wanted to roll it out earlier but it required changing the AMS Operating Procedures, which is a process. In a perfect world, we would have rolled this out in September/October but that just couldn't happen for reasons outside of the control of the AMS Officials Committee. It was felt that there was still plenty of SC season left and then LC. Though a small number of teams and some officials don’t swim LC, our AMS schedule goes from October to August and, as officials, we are responsible for providing officials to all AMS meets.
Are you having specific issues with the quality of officiating performed by officials that are meeting their 8 sessions per year requirement? Did you find that other sports require more hours? How about other LSC's? Perhaps the larger issue is with officials that are falling short of the 8 sessions per year. Shouldn't the first attempt be to enforce that existing rule rather than arbitrarily implement a new rule?
There is no question that we are having issues with the quality of officiating and have for some time. It’s one thing to know the rules, another to put them into practice. We are constantly hearing from coaches that our officials are inconsistent in making disqualifications and miss an awful lot of infractions, as well. Our Referees have noted this meet after meet, as well. We can all read the rules, get tested on the rules. But there’s no replacement for experience. I can tell you that, though I officiate a fairly significant number of sessions a year, I feel very rusty at the beginning of each season. It takes me a couple of meets to get my sea legs back. As for policing the current 8 session rule, we do monitor this and deal with those officials who have not met their minimum required sessions. Has this been consistently done? Admittedly no. But there are a very small number of officials who do not meet this requirement each year. Eight sessions is simply not enough to be a proficient official. Period. It doesn't matter what other sports do. If you attend other sports as a spectator, I’m sure you know that they suffer from the same problem with quality that we do. Some LSC’s require more sessions, some less. All we can base our decisions on is what’s happening here. Officials Chairs from across the country talk regularly and they are having many of the same issues that we are. We’re trying to fix our problem.
Part 2 of my response...
ReplyDeleteRegarding deck coverage at meets, have you worked to ensure that teams are providing officials to cover meets in which their teams participate? In practice, there are MANY teams participating at our meets without associated officials.
Every meet host has an Officials Contact who is responsible for ensuring that their deck has adequate coverage. They work very hard soliciting the help from our officials. Typically, once a meet host knows what teams are attending their meet, the Officials Contact reaches out to the officials from those teams asking them to please volunteer at one or more of their sessions. You’re absolutely correct that there are way too many meets that send a bunch of swimmers with no or very few officials. And how many meets have you worked at and peered up into the stands to see fellow officials sitting there…and their swimmer is in one of the last events. It’s frustrating. This is one of the primary reasons that we had to increase the minimum number of sessions required.
Ultimately, I suspect that we have many good officials that work less than 12 sessions per year that will be driven away from officiating as a result of this change. Furthermore, this may have a direct impact on the ability of some clubs to meet their minimum official requirement.
We do have a number of very good officials. The overwhelming majority of our finest officials work well in excess of 12 sessions. Will some officials be driven away from officiating if the number of required sessions is raised to 12? Possibly. But leaving things as they are will not improve the quality of our officiating our fill our decks with officials. Something had to be done and, after long discussion, it was decided that this was in the best interest of AMS, its swimmers, coaches and officials.