Best Practices
What the Best Instructors Do Right
Whether we've been officiating for some time, figure ourselves to be seasoned vets or we simply have three more games under our belts than...
Sell the Tough Call
What do a ninth-inning call at home plate, a crucial roughing penalty late in the fourth quarter or a block/charge call all have in...
Rehearse Fundamental Judgments
Officials can develop healthy habits when they rehearse fundamental judgments. Many sports have repeated practices or habits that you can rehearse in preparation for...
Postgame Discussions The Right Way
It was a tough game and not much went as planned. Now it’s time to break down where it all went wrong. It‘s a stressful situation and...
The Limits of Tolerance
Sports officials encounter differing degrees of behavior while on the job. A zero-tolerance policy is unrealistic, but there are limits to what we should...
How Video Has Changed Officiating
One of my favorite books is Instant Replay. The author, Jerry Kramer, was a guard for the Green Bay Packers and is now in...
Anti-Social
Social media and sports officials are increasingly colliding, creating new risks that officials at every level must understand and manage carefully. As officials, social...
9 Ways to Reach Your Dream Assignment
There’s a common human urge to improve. It runs through our work lives, the activities we undertake for enjoyment and our officiating endeavors. That urge manifests itself in sports...
The Art of Listening to Coaches
Successful officials are approachable and are good listeners. They recognize they have two ears and one mouth and they use them in that proportion....
8 Steps to Better Communication
When it comes to the necessities needed in becoming a successful sports official, the art of conversation might not seem to be high on...
Eight Ways To Avoid Negative Attention
The pages of Referee often feature the do’s for landing the next big game and breaking into the next level. But equally important to...
Restart Readiness
At a time when scrutiny of officials is greater than ever before, the need to get plays right is Job One. Most evaluators won’t...
Your Officiating Style Should Embrace Personal Growth
It's been one of those games. Every stop in play, someone from each team is complaining, and that doesn’t even include the coaches, who...
Study The Game To Improve As An Official
One of the greatest things you can do to help improve your officiating is to gain a better understanding of the game itself, whatever...
Always Time for Teachable Moments
Whether it is during the prematch conference or a postmatch debrief, a formal evaluation or a self-evaluation, or in a classroom clinic setting, we...
4 Habits of Successful Officials
If you took a poll of coaches and players and asked them to name the skills and habits that are important for a game...
7 Ways to Avoid Attacks
Unfortunately, in today’s culture, many officials have been followed out to their car by unfriendly people after a game. Others have been threatened during or after a...
Climb Your Mountain
A mountain is such a commonly used metaphor because it provides beautiful imagery to our goals and the challenges we face to reach them. Every...
Sometimes There Is No Right or Wrong Call
If you put 30 sports officials in a room, regardless of the sport, and watch a tight play on video, what happens during the...
Arrive and Shine With Good First Impressions
How you enter the arena, stadium, field or other facility says a lot about you. Do you casually stroll in? Are you laughing, confident,...
Honesty, Integrity Are Keys To a Full Schedule
The ability to grow your schedule is a key component to your development. We all want more games because we associate the number of...
Right Way to Turn Back a Game
In most aspects of life, there is a right way and a wrong way. Such is the case when you turn back a game. Knowing the difference...
4 Elements of Decisiveness
In the business world, money can be made or lost based, in
large measure, on the decisiveness of the executives. In battle, the
decisiveness of the...
Expect Little and You Won’t Be Disappointed
The spectrum of accommodation made for officials is vast. If you've been continually disappointed perhaps, unfortunately, your expectations were a bit high. What do...