Suppose you ask most veteran sports officials privately. In that case, they will tell you the quality of officiating has never been better than it is today but officiating itself has never been more challenging. Fans, coaches, administrators, television and radio announcers and commentators and social media often drive the narrative, even though most of them have no idea how officials prepare for a game and then go about administrating the game and the rules.
Officiating has gotten more complex, set within the broader society that seeks to right every wrong, to have any perceived injustice addressed or, in the case of sports, each “thought-to-be-wrong call” righted.
Officials are now being asked to do what most others in positions of authority are loath to do: know what the rules require and then enforce them impartially. As every official knows, that takes character, commitment and courage.
Five Voices From the Summit
Five leaders in the officiating community were part of a panel at last summer’s NASO Summit in suburban Denver to discuss some of the techniques they have used to improve their work and, equally important, develop and mentor new officials.
Sandra Serafini is a retired FIFA men’s and women’s professional and collegiate soccer referee, an assistant professor at Duke University Medical Center’s Department of Neurosurgery and a current NASO board member.
Joe Vaszily is a veteran NCAA Division I women’s basketball official with 19 NCAA tournament appearances and nine Final Fours, including the 2018 National Championship game.
Debbie Williamson is the former NCAA women’s basketball secretary-rules editor from 2006-14 and national coordinator of officiating from 2011-14. She is currently the coordinator of women’s basketball officials for the ACC, American Athletic, Atlantic 10, Big East, Big South, Colonial Athletic Association, Ivy League, MAAC and Southern conferences. She was NASO board chair in 2019.
Elaine Wright is an active high school volleyball and basketball official. She is a retired Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and Region IV basketball referee and a retired Colorado Volleyball Officials Association and Colorado Springs Basketball Officials Association board member.
Ernie Yarbrough is the assistant executive director and coordinator of officiating for the Georgia High School Association, the former director of officiating for the ABL Women’s Professional Basketball League and the 1995 Naismith High School Basketball Official of the Year in Georgia.
The Noise Is Rising
All the panelists agreed there have been significant changes in the behavior of fans, athletes and coaches in the last several years and not for the better. Wright set the tone for the conversation on the panel.
“I think the noise is today a lot about the behavior of the fans; it includes the parents, even the behavior of the kids, the coaches and sometimes the administrators, unfortunately.”
Yarbrough said officials in Georgia have had to be proactive in dealing with the challenges brought on by the changes.
“At the high school level, the issue that we’re dealing with right now about the noise is an open season about social media,” Yarbrough said. “People hide behind social media and they take potshots at officials. And that is the thing that is tough to deal with, especially at the administrative level at our high school association. We have had to look closely at that and set some serious penalties when that happens.”
Vaszily said the oncourt behavior of athletes also translates to increasing nasty actions by fans and coaches.
“I think at the college level, you have seen a dramatic shift in, I would say, the balance of power to student-athletes given NIL (Name, Image, Likeness), transfer, all these things that allow them to do a lot of different things and it is reflected on the court,” Vaszily said. “Behavior has gotten worse and I think it has been a quick shift in the last five years to where we are today.”
As she sees it, Serafini said the “noise” is increasing. It is coming more from people who feel they have a certain level of expertise in officiating when, in reality, they have little or no understanding of the official’s role in officiating the game and ensuring both teams have an equal chance to win.
“At the professional level, we think of noise as three layers. We have sort of within-game noise that happens on the field, sort of adjacent game noise that happens immediately surrounding the technical areas and coaches and other staff. Then there is outside-the-game noise,” Serafini said. “I think the biggest shift we must deal with is a societal shift through distrust of expertise.”
Support Matters
Two of the panelists said some of the “noise” officials experience comes from the differences that officials face when it comes to theoretical discussions of enforcing particular rules in a classroom or discussion setting, among other officials and then having to make that “tough call” on the field with coaches, administrators and fans up in arms and possibly taking to social media platforms to complain, especially if the call goes against their team. The complaints begin and can be vicious.
“From a high school perspective, I think the disconnect sometimes is the assigner or the leader passive with dealing with the situation,” Wright said. “So you tell the official to implement a rule to do exactly what the rulebook says and they do it. Then when the coaches or the administrators come to you, you take a passive and backseat to it and kind of try to work to make both sides think that everything is OK.
“I think that creates a disconnect,” Wright continued, “because why am I going to trust you as my leader when you are not supporting me? It would help if you were saying they applied the rule, it is correct and you need to change your behavior. So I think it is essential that we come together. And when our administrators, our assigners, tell us to do something that they allow us to do and they support us when we do it.”
“I think what gets lost in some of this in what we’re talking about,” Williamson said, “is while officials are waiting or wondering if we’re going to support them, some are erring on the side of not penalizing maybe, and then the behavior is escalating.
“And I think that is really where we are going with this is the difference is not only in what people are doing on the field and floor but what we’re doing as administrators, to Elaine’s point, to make you feel supported when you enforce those rules.”
Pressure and Preparation
Yarbrough says there sometimes is a difference between pro, college and high school sports. He also points out officials at the lower levels get less attention than those at higher levels. But he says officials are still under pressure to get the calls right.
“I think we are getting there at the high school level, unlike the level that Joe works at and what Sandra is alluding to at the professional level. Every one of the games that Joe works is observed, it is evaluated, it is kicked up to you,” Yarbrough said. “And if there are issues, if you feel that Joe should have dealt with something with a coach, you are going to let him know if he did not.
“At the high school level, not every game is videoed, nor is it observed and evaluated,” Yarbrough added. “And so it is tough when we at the state office get game reports for sportsmanship issues. We react to those immediately. None of those get filed in file number 13. So we are trying to get there. We are trying to support our officials more than we ever have when it comes to sportsmanship because of the level of unacceptable behavior that is taking place. It is a little more difficult at the high school level, but I do know that when unsporting game reports cross my desk or cross the desk of any of our sports coordinators, they are dealt with.”
Vaszily said officials must go into a contest with an open mind; however, he says because of the environment they are working in today’s society, it is incumbent upon them to be aware of what they may be facing before stepping into the arena or onto the field.
“We have a responsibility to have a heightened awareness of what it looks like and have the courage just to penalize the bad behavior when it happens. It is in rule 10 in our rulebook,” Vaszily said. “The matchup determines it. Conference play determines it. The records of the teams going into it as they are fighting for a playoff spot are all kinds of intangibles that we probably do not think about or think about them at a high level.”
But that level of officiating does not come overnight. It takes experience and training, the panelists said, to have the confidence to control the game, be fair to both teams and not be overbearing.
“We need to teach officials how it feels, what it looks like,” Williamson said. “Does anybody have any pregame advice because we all talk about, ‘Oh, we have got to pregame this and pregame that?’ Because on the other end of the spectrum are those officials who have a short fuse and say, ‘Oh, not here tonight.’”
Communication vs. Confrontation
The veteran officials said it all comes down to improving training, including improving the soft skills of officials at all levels.
“I think one of your biggest challenges, and I think it is essential, especially for younger officials, is you have got to teach them there is a difference between communication and confrontation,” Yarbrough said. “That is huge. And many younger officials do not understand that there is a difference. And if you can teach them those soft skills and the difference, we are communicating now, but, coach, once we become confrontational, this communication is ended. And they have either got to deal with that or walk away, one or the other. But do not continue being drawn into that confrontation, especially regarding a coach/official’s relationship.”
When Games Become “Mini-Wars”
But the panelists believe that even with better training, the level of competition and the intensity is increasing because of the money involved in sports at all levels, which adds to the noise.
“The amount of money that has come into youth sports compared to even five years ago, where even at the youth level directors of coaching are at six-figure salaries,” Wright said. “The parents who are spending thousands of dollars per season as the investment portfolio to get their kids to college potentially on a free ride, the stakes financially have become so high that everything is fair game to get a win. We are also fair game. So any advantage they can get in a game, including the officials, is all fair in love and war.
“And games now are not games anymore. They are mini-wars. And whatever they must do to win, wherever they can get an advantage, we are fair game in that. And I think having the officials understand that and the financial pressures being brought in, is not just a game.”
