Game Assignments: Right People, Right Place, Right Time The Right Way - Sample Chapter

SUMMIT SUPPORT 2013 SUMMIT SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS ORGANIZATIONS

31ST ANNUAL

SPORTS OFFICIATING

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S P O R T S O F F I C I AT I N G C O N T E N T

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GAME ASSIGNMENTS RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME THE RIGHT WAY

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SUMMIT201 3 GRAND RAPIDS, MI JULY 28-30

GAME ASSIGNMENTS

RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

THE RIGHT WAY

FROM THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SPORTS OFFICIALS

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Contents Introduction.......................................................................8 Chapter 1: It’s All About The Assignments....................11 • The numbers and trends paint the picuture.

• A “one size fits all” approach isn’t always best.

Chapter 2: What Assigners Really Do...........................25 • How to deal with the pressure applied by coaches, schools and officials.

• The best officials don’t always make the best crew.

Chapter 3: How The Pros Make Their Assignments.....34 • How to maximize staff effectiveness.

• Managing travel issues and logistics.

Chapter 4: I Thought I Was Covered: Assigners, Assignments and Risk..................................51 • Perspective from legal and insurance experts.

• What the parties involved in assigning must do.

Chapter 5: Right People, Right Place, Right Time........65 • Learn how to use a planned approach.

• Striking a balance between those who “own” the assignment and those who “fulfill” the assignment.

Chapter 6: Mad About The Media.................................78 • The benefit of having a spokesperson for the official.

• What responsibilities do the media have in what they present?

Chapter 7: When It’s Time To Go...................................91 • “Riding off into the sunset” can be a positive experience.

• How do you have that difficult conversation?

Chapter 8: The Right Way: Assignments By Design..................................................99 • What are the best practices when it comes to assigning?

• A blueprint for assigners across the country to reference.

Conclusion.................................................................... 113 Appendix One.............................................................. 114

Session List

Appendix Two.............................................................. 118 Speaker Directory

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Appendix Three........................................................... 130 Exhibitor List

Appendix Four............................................................. 139 Summit Support Organizations

The NASO Sports Officiating 2013 Summit, with the theme of “Game Assignments: Right People, Right Place, Right Time, The Right Way� served as the basis for this book, supplemented by material published in Referee magazine and a variety of NASO publications, as well as information gathered from previous NASO Summits.

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1 It’s All About the Assignments

In This Chapter ...

• The numbers and trends paint the picuture.

• A “one size fits all” approach isn’t always best.

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GAMEASSIGNMENTS ASSIGNMENTS GAME

O

fficiating, at its core, is all about the assignments. If there were no game assignments for assigners to hand out or for officials to seek, there would simply be no need for sports officials. Recruiting, training, educating and evaluating officials are all part of the officiating equation, but the largest variable is undoubtedly the assignments. That was the very topic explored in the first session of the 2013 Sports Officiating Summit.

Since the 31st annual Summit was held in Grand Rapids, Mich., it was only fitting that the opening crew of presenters were native to the state. The panel consisting of Mike Conlin, Rich Fetchiet and Mark Uyl painted a picture for the audience by examining the trends and statistics of the who, where, what and how officiating assignments are made across the country.

The panelists have unique officiating responsibilities, which gave them various perspectives on the subject. Fetchiet is currently the supervisor of umpires for the Collegiate Baseball Umpire Alliance, which includes seven NCAA Division I conferences. He retired from active umpire duty prior to the 2001 season after 30 years as an amateur baseball umpire. Conlin currently officiates football and baseball at the Division I level. He has worked the College World Series three times, most recently in 2011. He’s a former Division I basketball official and currently the coordinator of men’s basketball officials for four collegiate conferences, including the Division I Horizon League, and several high school conferences. Uyl is an assistant director for the Michigan High School Athletic Association and umpires baseball at the Division I level. He has received three NCAA Super Regional assignments in his umpiring career.

The High School Scene

Uyl opened the session by recognizing how the art of assigning is fundamentally the same whether one is assigning high school contests or games at the major college level. “Assigning does vary, but whether it’s on a very small scale like what the state association does with our postseason tournaments or on a larger scale with what both Rich and Mike do with all of the regular season assigning, there are many things that we have in common,” he said.

Having a positive working relationship with schools is vital to Uyl in the role that he plays.

Uyl gave an example of just how the numbers play out for high school officials in Michigan. “This past school year in Michigan, we had a total of 10,857 of what we call registered officials,” he said. “We have 15 sports that we have officials for, and so the total number of folks who get in through the door who register with us was just under 11,000. That’s our total group.”

Uyl then went on to break that number down until only the state finals officials are left working. “If you now fast forward to

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EXHIBIT 1

the very end of that process, 312 officials get a final championship assignment (EXHIBIT 1). So that means there are 40 officials that get to work our football championships at Ford Field,” Uyl explained. “That includes the crew that work as starters and referees at our cross-country championships, our judges at competitive cheer, our gymnastics officials; they’re all part of that 312.

“If someone gets into high school officiating and their goal is to work a state final, you first have to start out with the realities of the assigning. When it really comes down to it, it’s a numbers game. Out of that group of almost 11,000 each year only 312 get in that loop.”

Uyl gave an example of how the process plays out in a certain sports. “As we back out a little bit with our assigning process, let me just show you how that numbers game plays out,” he said.

“It could be any sport in our state and I’m sure it could be any sport in your states. I’m going to use our basketball numbers, but again, it could be soccer, or it could be volleyball or anything in between.”

Michigan, with its two peninsulas, is a diverse state, given how it is spread out geographically. The state is divided into eight officiating “zones.”

“In each zone, we do all of our assigning within that zone,” Uyl said. “We’ll take at least one person from each zone that gets to work the finals at the end of the tournament. For our 13

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basketball demonstration, we have roughly 138 tournamenteligible basketball officials in each zone. Let’s say in zone five we have 138 available officials that want to be assigned. The first step in our tournament is called our districts. It just so happens that in zone five we have 19 sites where we need district basketball officials. In that zone there’s 19 locations where they’re going to host the tournament, and we need six officials at every one of those district sites.”

The majority of officials, by nature, want to work in the postseason. Understandably, the number of officials and those who are pleased with their assignments start to dwindle as the tournament progresses.

“Approximately 114 out of 138 officials are selected to work the district tournament,” Uly said. “We’ve shrunken the number of happy campers at 100 percent down to 83 percent. So 83 percent have now made the first cut to where they get a first round tournament assignment at the district level, the number of host sites times six (EXHIBIT 2).”

Uyl went on to elaborate that in reality, that number is actually higher than that 83 percent. The 114 officials selected are just the initial assignments. For various reasons, replacements and changes need to be made from time to time.

“The real number of folks that work a first-round tournament who meet all the eligibility requirements is probably a little bit closer to 90 percent with some of the turnbacks,” he said.

Michigan uses various criteria to select their officials. “By and large if you’re a regular-season varsity official, you’re getting good ratings and reports, you’re on one of the recommendation lists from either your local association or assigner, chances are good that you’re going to get to work a first-round tournament game,” Uyl said.

One of the most common questions the MHSAA gets is from officials who are trying to make the jump to the next level: I’ve worked that entry level round of the tournament, how can I now make the big leap to get to the regional level?

Uyl continued his numbers analysis as the tournament progresses. “In zone five, we have seven regional sites, with three games being played in the each regional,” he said. “Therefore, nine officials are assigned to each regional with each official only working one game. The number of officials from that original 138 has now shrunk once at the district level and has now shrunk again down to 63 regional officials.

“So now from that original number, 46 percent of our available officials are now working what we really refer to as the middle round of our tournament. You can see the number of happy campers has now gone from 100 percent down to 83 percent, now we’re at 46 percent. It’s almost like a bad episode of Survivor. That number keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.”

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EXHIBIT 2

The biggest jump obviously happens at the tournament reaches its final stages. Uyl noted, “To work a quarterfinal game, we’re now down to the final 16 teams in each division. In our zone five example, there are three schools that are hosting one of those quarterfinal games. We only now need nine officials at the quarterfinal level. Now we’re only down to using seven percent of those that were available.”

The numbers game continues to decrease for the final two steps: the final four round (the semifinals) and the state championship.

“We took four officials out of zone five for our semifinals, so we’re now down to three percent,” Uly said. “Last, but not least, two officials got to work one of the four championship games, which is 1.4 percent (EXHIBIT 3, pg. 16).”

Uyl then showed a slide on the screen that had the numbers at 83 percent beginning with the districts and ending with the 1.4 percent for the finals. That sort of decreasing staircase really shows how the numbers work (EXHIBIT 4, pg. 17).

No one system of assigning will ever be perfect, as a number of factors are at play. “Assigning, when you really step back, is truly a numbers game,” Uyl said. “The hard thing about it is — and we often tell our officials when it comes to tournament selection — there are two extremes of the spectrum. On one end, we could have an MHSAA observer at every single game where they could watch, they could take notes, give a full evaluation and they’re 15

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EXHIBIT 3

able to absolutely evaluate everything that goes on during a game. That is essentially the NFL model where every game in the NFL is graded on every single snap. The amount of data that they have at their disposal to make their selections is obviously more than enough.

“At the other end of that spectrum, we could put all of those 136 officials on an index card, we could go up to the second floor in our office, and we could toss the cards up and let them flutter on down to our main floor. You could go down and the first four cards that you pick up are your final officials. The next nine cards that you pick up are your quarterfinal officials. My point is, at the other extreme end of that spectrum, it’s completely random.

“Whether you’re selecting based on every single pitch, play or snap, or the 100 percent completely random part of it or something hopefully somewhere in the middle, whatever you do inside that spectrum, it really is a numbers game.”

Uyl tries to make the officials in his state realize that. “I think what we try and do is explain to our officials and show them the numbers because there is a lot of frustration for a person that gets that district assignment and only works that first round for four or five years,” he said. “I’m really seeing that frustration: Well how can I make that jump to the regional level? And the regional men and women: How can I make that jump to get to the quarterfinal? I think when you show them the numbers, and really when you look at it on the screen or on paper, it at least 16

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