offical classes

[KoachKream]

In each state do the refs get together once a year to clarify rules and deffinitions to each other. Do you take classes once a year or just when you start? To me, and yes i know peoples opinions differ, some officals call penilties when none should be called, and officals deffinations differ. Are there classes?

[Snake~eyes]

In each state do the refs get together once a year to clarify rules and deffinitions to each other. Do you take classes once a year or just when you start? To me, and yes i know peoples opinions differ, some officals call penilties when none should be called, and officals deffinations differ. Are there classes?
Depends on your association.

Some have classes just for beginners, some have classes for everyone(though not always mandatory). Some start way before the season, some start closer, it all depends. Some associations training is good, some are not so good.

And yes you are right, officals judgement differs and yes some officials interpretations are different(meaning some are wrong).

[LaxRef]

Where I've worked, there have been training classes for all officials before each season, with some more in-depth than others. There are some officials who don't fully understand the rules and make calls that are just plain wrong, but there are many cases where either the rules aren't clear or are open to multiple interpretations.

There are also many cases where individual judgment comes into play. For example, there's no objective measure of whether a hit with the stick is really a slash or not; there are some contacts that all officials will call a slash, and some that none will, and a whole lot in between. No amount of additional trianing will completely eliminate this variability.

As a team, to some extent you need to adjust to the officials. If the officials are calling everything, then be extra-careful to avoid anything that could be called a foul. If they aren't calling much, you can be more agressive.

I think most experienced players and officials are much more frustrated with variability from a single official than from official to official. That is, they don't care as much if an official calls a game tighter or looser, but they care a lot if an official calls a light hit as a slash in the first quarter and lets a two-handed chop to the head go in the second quarter. In other words, they want each official to call the game consistently. Expecting the game to be called consistently from official to official is a goal to be strived for, but one that will never be fully realized.

[Vector_Joe]

As has been stated, it will vary from state to state. This is my first year, but this is how I understand it works for the state of Illinois.

There are 2 classroom sessions, one on the field session and a training/scrimmage session. The training/scrimmage is a session where you run along side an experienced official during one of the preseason tournaments. Plus one mandatory session for all officials before the season.

This is all the stuff for the beginning officials, but the veterans are also welcome to come (many second year officials came to the first classroom session).

We are a fairly fledgeling association. This year we have only 25 officials for the whole state who have more than 2 years of experience and the rest (total of 70) are in their 1st or 2nd year.

[LaxRef]

We are a fairly fledgeling association. This year we have only 25 officials for the whole state who have more than 2 years of experience and the rest (total of 70) are in their 1st or 2nd year.

How many teams do you have? Because 70 sounds like a pretty decent number of officials, unless you have a lot of teams.

[Shorelax]

Preseason scrimmages are a great teaching tool. Scrimmages in this area do not count towards the team’s final record. If you blow a big call - it will not affect a team’s regular season. I probably worked 15 preseason varsity scrimmages this year - always with a senior official. The upside - I was able to work some high level games with seasoned officials and learned a tremendous amount. The down side - the games didn’t pay, but hey I do it because I love the game and want to become a better official.

Additionally we have a classroom session once a week - for nine weeks.

[LaxRef]

Preseason scrimmages are a great teaching tool. Scrimmages in this area do not count towards the team’s final record. If you blow a big call - it will not affect a team’s regular season. I probably worked 15 preseason varsity scrimmages this year - always with a senior official. The upside - I was able to work some high level games with seasoned officials and learned a tremendous amount. The down side - the games didn’t pay, but hey I do it because I love the game and want to become a better official.

Additionally we have a classroom session once a week - for nine weeks.

Where I've workked, scrimmages didn't pay unless the school requested officials. However, you could probably call up the school and work scrimmages for free if you wanted to.

[Vector_Joe]

How many teams do you have? Because 70 sounds like a pretty decent number of officials, unless you have a lot of teams.

o In 2004, 41 schools, 82 teams, 518 games, 48 officials with 10 of the 48 working less than 5 games in the season; 50% of the games had 1 referee

o In 2005, 42 schools, 104 teams, 600+ games, ?? officials

- 33 - are in their first year of refereeing lacrosse

- 12 - this is their second year of refereeing lacrosse

- 25 - experenced lacrosse officials

I am one of those in their first year, and hopefully we'll have pretty good coverage this year.

But last year they only had 48 and the year before that, 25 or so.

Assuming around 600 games and wishing for 2 officials for each game gives us 1200 man-games. For 70 officials that averages to 17 games over the 6-8 week season. I know personally, I'm only going to be able to work about 12-14 games because of my work/personal schedule.

But overall, I think the growth of our officials association is pretty good as long as we can retain most of the officials after this season.

The 'scrimmage' that I/we went through was an actual preseason tournament, so (I believe) the actual officals got paid, but we trainees did not.

-hey, today is my first real game that I'm reffing.-

[tjslax]

Good luck Joe, my first scrimmage is Wed!