ZZZ The first step to establishing and maintaining concentration is a good pregame. Most officials understand that your concentration should be at a high level the moment you step onto the field or court. Officials at high levels spend hours looking at film and conferring with partners about an impending contest. However, that pregame preparation is essential for officials at all levels, from the high school official to the recreational softball umpire. ZZZ Less understood among officials is the need for a postgame conference. You wouldn’t think that concentration levels would be an issue after a ballgame, but the need for that evaluation after every game prepares you for the next assignment. Burr noted that a postgame conference is every bit as important as the pregame ritual. Ed Cartotto, 30-year officiating veteran and supervisor of basketball officials for the Eastern College Athletic Conference, notes that while the pregame conference is essential to establish the focus of officials, it is the postgame conference that is the key to improvement for an official. If you don’t evaluate your level of focus, and have others evaluate you, you cannot compose a blueprint for improvement. Be honest with yourself in judging your concentration after the game. Was a missed call simply that? Or was it the result of a lapse in focus? Only through that honest look within can you hope to improve in that area. ZZZ Hyland offers this map for game evaluation: Start with the last 30 seconds of a ballgame and work backward, evaluating every portion of the game, from end to beginning. The end of the game is fresher in your mind, and most often, it is a lapse in concentration or a controversial call late in the game that will generate the most dialogue about your assignment. ZZZ Fish submits this three-step approach to improving your concentration: First, understand going in that the nature of your job dictates that you will get upset from time to time. Second, start to understand the patterns of your anxiety and, combined with your personality type, seek to learn which buttons are more likely to be pushed in certain circumstances. Third, start to practice skills to combat the anxiety that leads to loss of focus. Positive self-talk or relaxation exercises are two skills you can employ to help you stay focused when circumstances dictate otherwise. In the case of anxiety caused by missed calls, Fish compartmentalizes his technique in these terms: ZZZ • Release – Understand beforehand that you will make mistakes. ZZZ • Regroup – Acknowledge your mistake (to yourself) and then let your emotions go. ZZZ • Refocus – Deal only in “this moment,” forgetting about the past over which you ZZZ ZZZ Zhave no control and concentrate on the present game at hand.