Art Of Officiating
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Covering conflict management, the psychology of officiating, best practices and officiating/life balance.
Taking the Officiating Plunge in a Father’s Footsteps
If you were offered a job where you had to travel, sometimes long and far, got frequently criticized when you performed your duties and...
Six C’s That Will Get You Straight A’s
Mnemonics are devices intended to assist the memory, as a verse or formula. A popular example, HOMES, is an acronym to help recall the...
Effective Relationships With Coaches
I was working a boys’ basketball game a few years back and the home team was getting shelled. They couldn’t shoot, pass, handle the...
Leave Your Bad Day at Home
Television newsman Neil Cavuto says, “There’s nothing wrong or evil about having a bad day. There’s everything wrong with making others have to have...
Four Errors You Might Be Making
We don’t like it when we mess up. Yet, in trying to eliminate errors, most of our focus is on rules and mechanics. The...
20 Inspiring Books For Sports Officials
If you had inside access to the bookshelves of college and professional officials and officiating leaders, what books would you find? Sure, rulebooks are...
6 To Do’s Before Play Resumes After a Stoppage
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...
How To Move on From a Mistake
OK, you blew a call. What are you going to do now?
1. Mope.
2. Think about it for a while.
3. Forget about it and move...
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...
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...
Why R You Officiating?
Officiating is an avocation, and no two people come to it the same way or for the same reasons. I knew that whatever I...
Learn Lessons From Sports You Don’t Work
“What’s My Line?” was a popular TV game show 45 years ago. Larry Blyden was the host and the premise was that four celebrities had to guess...
It’s Not Your Timeout
A timeout provides officials with an opportunity to galvanize, regroup, clarify or simply maintain focus on the game at hand.
What can a person do in 60 seconds?
An Olympic-level...
Stay Focused until Game Conclusion
At any sporting event, you’re likely to hear someone holler, “Keep your head in the game!” That heckler might not be referring to the...
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 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...
Does Appearance Still Matter If You Get the Calls Right?
Beards and tattoos have become much more prevalent and accepted in today’s society than in years past. You see them on everyone from CEOs...
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...
Make an Officiating Comeback
A few seasons ago, I felt like I was on the “up and up.” I felt personal improvement in my play calling, physique and...
Etiquette for Video Training
Using video for training purposes is no longer the discovery of the age. Gone are the days we have to give a blank video...
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 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...
Self-Evaluation is Critical
Having both the ability and willingness to self-evaluate is
critical to becoming a better referee. Whether you do youth, school or amateur games, you must...
Showing Emotion Isn’t a Bad Thing
Judgment is an old concept in terms of human history, and as time goes on, humans are constantly trying to regulate judgment and eliminate emotion, to the...