Welcome to Officiating!

I got asked to help out with new referee training for my high school officiating association a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make it last week due to work but stopped by the gym tonight to see if I could help out.

There were a ton of experienced officials participating so I didn't talk to the new "recruits" much.  However, I got a chance to see some on court work by the new folks and it was interesting to look at the new people work. 

With every group of new officials, you'll always get a wide diversity of people.  There always seem to be one or two that look comfortable out there despite their lack of experience.  On the other end, you'll get people who can't quite blow the whistle and do the right mechanics at the same time yet. 

The rest of the people are usually somewhere in between.   Some look decent but need some more experience to smooth out their mechanics.  Others just need to get into better shape.   On the flip side, some are so eager to please that it seems like they are the energizer bunny out there. 

It was actually good for me to show up at the training session.  I may be a veteran in terms of the number of years that I've officiated but I don't have a lot of big game experience.  The reason I started this blog was because I realized I needed to continue to learn and improve.  Maybe I won't improve as drastically as some of these new folks will, but I feel I still have a lot of room to grow.  

If given a chance, I would say one thing to the new officials.  Your learning and training never stop, even after they complete their training over the next few weeks.  There are always new situations that will occur from game to game.   While the lack of experience may frustrate people, mistakes are the only way you will learn and grow.