Art Of Officiating
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Covering conflict management, the psychology of officiating, best practices and officiating/life balance.
Get The Most Out of Camps and Clinics
The best way for you to judge the effectiveness of a clinic or camp is to count the number of habits or procedures that...
When Your Game is Postponed
Your bag is packed and you’re just about ready to head out for your game when the phone rings. A chicken pox outbreak at...
Unexpected Challenges in Officiating
As I headed down the long, nondescript, stale-smelling concrete tunnel toward the soccer stadium field from the officials’ locker room, looking forward to being...
Strategies to Stay Above the Fray
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the officiating industry has taken a heavy blow. All officials in some shape or form were impacted and continue to...
Working Youth Games Is Good For Everyone
Youth leagues are where many officials get their start, particularly those who begin officiating at a young age. Those games provide a good place...
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...
Strategic Planning For Your Officiating Career
Do you sometimes feel that your officiating career has grown stagnant, that your future seems unclear and that you’re not sure where you’re heading...
Impartiality in Addressing Coaches
I'm always ill at ease when an official with whom I’m working is on a first-name basis with a coach. Earlier this baseball season,...
How To Get A Postseason Assignment and Make The Most Of It
How do you get a postseason assignment? What skills are important when doing those big games? How do you stay at the top when...
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...
Be a Rock, Not a Robot
When people say, “There’s no need to get emotional,” that’s probably more true for officials than for the average person. Put a regular guy...
Your Calls Linger After You
You may think the impact of your officiating is confinded to the time the clock is running and ends at the buzzer, but your...
Time to Drop a Sport?
If you are a multi-sport official who favors one sport over another, you may be considering dropping your least-favorite sport. Before taking that step,...
How To Handle An Instantly Irritated Coach
The legendary Ed Hightower was “on loan” to the Western Athletic Conference many years ago handling the referee duties during a Fresno State game. About 30 seconds into the...
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...
6 Things You Never Say to a Coach
You will say all kinds of things when you’re having a conversation, conference, discussion, talk, debate or heated exchange with a coach. But are there some comments that should...
53 Things Every Rookie Should Know
1 You learn how to better express yourself so others understand exactly what you mean
2 You’re going to get yelled at.
3 You’re going to...
Squeezing the Last Drop Out of Your Talent
For most of the movie “Whiplash,” music instructor Terence Fletcher curses, rails at, belittles and humiliates his students.
When he encounters one of his former...
When Mascots Get Out of Hand
Referees and umpires around professional, college and even high school sports unfortunately must face the challenges of how to deal with mascots who either affect play on the field...
Try Angles
There is one thing I find more important than all others in getting my calls on the field and on the court correct: the...
How and When Do You Interact With Players?
Questions officials face in contests include: How and when do you interact with players? Do you nip brewing bad behavior in the bud? Do...
Manage High Stress Situations So You Don’t Choke or Panic
Why do some officials perform poorly when under pressure? Ruling out poor positioning, misapplication or misunderstanding of the rules, inexperience and absentmindedness, one must turn to psychological explanations for official underperformance....
Defeat Negative Attitudes. Enjoy Your Games.
Situational negativity occurs when a specific recent incident causes one official to adopt a negative attitude toward another official. Imagine a football crew in...
How to NOT Argue
It takes a minimum of two people to have an argument. If one person chooses not to participate, that leaves the second party blustering...