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July 16, 2001
We all know officiating is a tough business. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
There are many pitfalls that mentally weigh on us: lack of quality assignments, unprofessional partners, time away from home and family, association politics, coaches scratch lists… the list goes on and on. Each one is a reason to quit officiating. In fact, many that do quit cite those things and others as major factors.
The hard truth is, those things equate to ready-made excuses for failure. The officiating business is no different than life itself: there are good days and bad days. Those that quit officiating without really getting into it have probably moved on to something else in their lives. Odds are, they’ll quit that too.
We’ve got so many people beating us up mentally in officiating that it can be difficult to see the job through. Have you ever asked yourself in anger after an especially tough game, "Who needs officiating?" When you stop and think about all that officiating gives to you, the answer is, "You do."
Officiating gives you a chance to shape the lives of young people. It gives you a chance to remain active in a sport you love. It gives you a chance to ensure ethics, sportsmanship and fair play remain important factors in your life and the lives of others. It gives you a chance to be a positive role model. It teaches you responsibility, work ethic and professionalism. If you’re really into officiating, officiating gets into you. Fight through the critics and cynics that eat at us daily in our officiating worlds. You are performing an admirable service for others by giving of yourself.
It’s OK to have bad days and poor thoughts about officiating. That’s human nature. Just turn those negatives into positives. When you’re down, read this list; you’ll stay on the right track as a quality person and, in turn, a model official.
Be receptive. Sometimes are biggest problems come from other people. We don’t like our ego bruised. Even people with extremely strong personalities hurt once in a while.
The key to being receptive is considering the source. "You’re terrible!" coming from an overbearing, loud-mouthed Little League mother shouldn’t get much attention in your mind because the source is not credible. Conversely, you become a better official, and a better person, if you are receptive to thoughts and ideas coming from people whom you respect. Open your mind every so often to listen to new concepts and consider other people’s opinions. The survivors are those who adapt to change.
Be honest. Unreal expectations places extra burden in an already intense job. You must be honest with yourself about your abilities. Thinking that you’re going to be an NFL official one day is not a bad thought… unless you realistically don’t have the ability or you’ve set an unrealistic time frame. The sooner you’re honest with yourself about what exactly it is you want out of officiating, the more relaxed you’ll become. You’ll reach an inner peace that means mental comfort each time you take the field.
Become a leader. Too often, officiating becomes an "every man for himself" endeavor, with officials backstabbing and undercutting each other for assignments and promotions. Don’t fall into the trap.
If you adopt the philosophy that you’re going to help others reach their goals, you will reach yours. By become a leader, you can encourage people to work hard and do the right things to make themselves successful. In turn, you’re raising expectations for them and for yourself. Learn to love helping people. Those you help are better, you’re better and the game is better for it.
Be passionate. You’ve got to love what you’re doing, or you really shouldn’t be doing it. Look forward to your next assignment to see if you can meet its challenges and exceed your expectations. Let officiating get inside you to the point that it becomes a lifestyle. If you’re passionate about integrity, honesty and professionalism, you’ve improved your quality of life. Is that worth getting passionate about? Absolutely!
Be courageous. It takes tons of courage to rise above it all and do the right thing. Doing what is right– versus what’s popular or safe– takes strong will and conviction. You’ve got to believe in your heart that what you’re doing is the right thing. When you do make a mistake (and you WILL make mistakes!), it takes great strength and courage to bounce back and learn from it. Give it your best at all times, never stop learning and stand tall through adversity– all life lessons shared in officiating.
Be persistent. Set attainable goals and work to reach them. A goal is simply a dream with a deadline. Adopt the Nike slogan, "Just Do It," into your everyday life. If you treat officiating like a business that you enjoy, you will be persistent in seeing the job through. Wake up everyday thinking, "How am I going to improve officiating today?" Maybe it’s study the rulebook, watch a young official, work on a new mechanic, recruit a person to try officiating, thank someone who has helped you. With the mindset that you are going to improve officiating everyday, you’re going to do the little things necessary to improve our entire avocation and help yourself in the process.
Be self-disciplined. Along with being persistent, you’ve got to be self-disciplined. No one can or should hold your hand everyday in officiating. You can’t rely on others to do the work for you. The only real way to help others and help yourself is to establish goals, set deadlines and be productive. Again, think of officiating as a business and yourself as a business owner. By developing a business owner mentality, you will be self-disciplined because you have the will to succeed. Don’t put things off until tomorrow; do it today and move onto other positive things tomorrow.
Have unshakable faith. The world is full of energy drag. The nightly news… the daily paper… the constant griping at work…pressure builds constantly and negative energy saps your strength. Add to that all of the officiating woes and it’s no wonder you don’t want to do anything!
If you have unshakable faith that what you’re doing improves others and yourself, there really are no "officiating woes." Yes, there are challenges, but challenges met are akin to success. Believe that officiating is a positive force in your life because it is. Most importantly, believe in yourself. You deserve it because you’re a real official.
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Meet the NASO Executive Board The NASO executive board for 2001-02 is (back row, left to right) John Clougherty, Gary Gullett and Ron Foxcroft. (front row) Gary Whelchel and Barry Mano are seated. |
Increased Operational Pace Gets Boards Attention
Discussions concerning the increased pace of association operations highlighted the agenda of the NASO board of directors semi-annual meeting held June 16, prior to the annual conference in Norfolk, Va.
The board agreed in concept to combine forces with the National Federation Officials Association to hold a joint conference in Albuquerque next June underscoring the associations commitment to developing strategic alliances. It also agreed to provide additional funding for the operations of the Officials Development Alliance.
Board members viewed and gave high marks to a 30-second television public service announcement recently produced as an NASO initiative and heard plans to make the PSA available to local officiating associations to help their recruiting efforts.
The board was updated on the operational plans of the NASO Foundation, received a briefing on the status of the association’s insurance program and deliberated concerning recommendations for changes in the investment strategy.
New assignments to board committees were made and a meeting of the strategic development committee was proposed for September. Ron Foxcroft was appointed to head an effort to review the status of the management agreement, which extends through the end of 2001, between NASO and Referee Enterprises.
Staff members gave updates on the status of operations, budget execution, legislative and public relations activity and the board approved the independent audit of the 2000 financial statements of the association.
Joan Powell and Jerry Seeman were elected to the board for two-year terms. Ron Foxcroft, Gary Gullett, Jack Roberts and Marcy Weston were reelected for second two-year terms. Officers for the coming year are Chair, Gary Whelchel; Vice Chair, John Clougherty; Treasurer, Ron Foxcroft; Secretary, Gary Gullett.
The next board meeting is in January in Dallas.
The Annual Meeting of NASO was conducted June 20 in Norfolk, Va., at the Waterside Marriott. NASO Chair Gary Whelchel called the meeting to order and spoke to the attendees about his personal philosophy of "people, programs and positivity." Whelchel's philosophy will be shared in his column in the September issue of It's Official. Referee Enterprises Incorporated Vice President Tom Herre also presented an update on the Officiating Development Alliance.
Each year the highlight of the meeting is NASO President Barry Mano’s "State of the Association Address." The following is an excerpt from his presentation.
Operations. NASO is celebrating its 21st year as an organization in 2001. It has grown from zero to its current position of more than 17,500 members — impressive by any measure.
Today, NASO has a budget well in excess of $1 million a year that is rigorously audited annually by an independent auditing firm. This budget is supported in great majority by your dues as paying members. If you look at the budgetary breakdown, 95 percent of that budget is made up of dues being paid by our members. So with this in mind, we are constantly and consistently focusing upon the kinds of things we give back to you, our members.
You are absolutely critical to our well being, so we have in place a benefit and service program that we think is the best on planet Earth.
Conference. Realize this is a national association. Only a few of us come together here each year at this conference, and only a few of us will continue to come together for this conference. Frankly, let me say, we’re never going to have a conference with a 1,000, or 5,000 or 10,000 people. The people who come here are very special and what we’re looking for – as we like to say in Racine — is geometry, not arithmetic.
We’re looking for the people to come here that will have an influence well beyond what happens in Norfolk, or Colorado Springs, or Albuquerque, or in all the places that we’ve been.
Membership benefits. You get a magazine every month (Referee); you get a newsletter every month (It’s Official); many of you receive a cyberspace newsletter each month (NASO Lockerroom); there are educational publications, too. One curious thing though I’ll share with you. In the year 2000 we initiated a program, as part of repositioning the association, to give each of you a free — and free is the operative word here — a free publication of your choosing. Yet right now, only 20 percent of the membership have claimed it.
We sit back in Racine and we’re astonished. There’s no other way we can say it. We can’t go house by house and hand it to each member all over the United States.
It’s kind of amazing. We’ve looked back at the promotional materials we’ve produced and the words are clear — there’s no obligation; there’s no money; it’s free. And yet only 20 percent have taken us up.
Now, on the flip side, it helps the budget because we’re not sending out more free books, but there they are for the NASO member. This association is intent on providing you and all the members educational materials that are going to make you a better ref. That’s why we’re here.
Insurance benefits. We have an insurance program second to none. NASO started that whole thing. There are other places to get different insurances today, but at NASO, you have the finest liability insurance; bar none — with the highest limit, bar none ($3 million).
The key to the program is that it covers you in every game you work any place, any level, any time other than a pickup game. So in any situation, other than a pickup game, whether it’s softball or rugby or lacrosse or whatever, the NASO liability program covers you. There isn’t any other insurance that can say that.
We also have the assault protection program. Sad to say it’s there, but it is and that’s an important program that nobody else is offering officials.
So what else is NASO doing for you?
We give you special support. If you need something from NASO by way of materials because you’re going to a local association meeting, we say “How many?” and “Where do you need it and when?” And our staff moves out and gets it to you. All of that takes resources and we’re glad to have the resources provided by individual members to be able to do that. Your dues make that possible.
Legislative activities. Who would have thought back in 1980 when this thing started we’d be spending 20 or 25 percent of our time on matters involving assaults against referees? Fifteen states have passed legislation with our help and support. Illinois has passed it, but the governor of Illinois continues to sit on it and not sign it. Fifteen states — the most recent being New Mexico.
Public relations. Now, out of all these things we do spins our PR effort. We’ve got a “PR-machine” back in Racine that we didn’t have five years ago. We’re involved in a lot of things. Somewhat, the PR machine is being driven by the negative stuff that’s happening. ABC News Nightline was here yesterday because the decline in sportsmanship is a serious concern.
Working with the media is a fulltime effort and we now realize it’s one of the reasons we’re here as an association.
We need to take a leadership role. More importantly, we do so not just for our American members, but also for those officials in Canada and abroad. As far away as Australia, two prominent people from the Parliament came to the United States on a fact-finding mission. They came to the NASO headquarters in Racine to sit down with us for a half a day and discuss officiating issues because they are concerned with the growth of violence in sports in Australia. It is affecting their ability to get volunteer coaches and referees.
When I was asked to speak over there two years ago and I raised the subject of violence against officials as a potential topic to the National Officiating Program’s Executive Director Sean Scott, he said to me, “We don’t need to talk about that because it’s not a problem.” Now look, here we are two years later and they’re coming this way to look at our model legislation and the other things that we’re doing at NASO to try to fashion some response in Australia. All these things take time, energy, human beings and resources. You’re supporting these good efforts with your dues.
The positive side of the PR effort is the sportsmanship initiative. We’re part of the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance and we’ve participated in numerous programs conducted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics with Michael Josephson. It’s really exciting. John Clougherty, NASO’s vice chair, was at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill recently to be part of a sportsmanship summit.
In late August, the National Association of Basketball Coaches is having a two-day summit in Kansas City about bad behavior in basketball. Josephson is running it. He’s asked the NBA’s Director of Officiating Ed Rush, the National Federation of State High School Associations Assistant Director Mary Struckhoff and myself to be there as part of that program for the officiating perspective. We need to do those kinds of things on behalf of the officiating perspective so that we’re part and parcel of that.
Each month the NASO Board gets a report that explains what is happening with respect to media relations, community outreach, legislation and more. We are constantly doing positive things in the area of community outreach such as helping members with presentations. We are also developing a speakers bureau to help with local meetings. NASO provides support materials for people, so if you want to speak at your local level, call us up. Get hold of NASO’s Manager of Public Relations Bob Still, and he will send you some information on the sorts of things you can talk about.
And finally, there’s the “Make The Call” public service announcement. We’re very proud of that. Bob Kanaby (Executive Director of the National Federation of State High School Associations) asked for a copy right away. That’s a good sign. We’re going to be sending copies to all the state associations. It’s something very exciting that state associations can use during your tournaments, and that is all part of NASO’s PR outreach.
Building relationships with others. Finally, we have an alliance, as you might know, with the National Federation that we did not have before. Referee Enterprises, which is the management team for NASO, is producing this year for the National Federation seven pre-season sport newsletters that they are taking to their officials. Seven now, and we’re hopefully on the way to 16 sports. We’ve joined together. They looked and said, “Those folks in Racine are producing very good educational materials. Why don’t we partner with them?” When they brought that idea up, we said, “Boy that’s for us! We’d love to do that.”
So we have this partnership with the NFHS that enables our staff to attend NFHS rules meetings and this then allows us to quickly take that information and turn it into fine products that are used by all high school officials.
For many years NASO talked about the concept of merging the NASO Conference with the gatherings of other officiating organizations. Within the past few months, meetings between the leadership of NASO and the NFHS (NFOA) has led to an agreement to bring together the NFOA Leadership Conference and our event. We are so pleased to announce that this combined event will premiere in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 20-23, 2002. Watch for the formal announcement soon.
We know the third week in June is going to fit for some and it won’t for others. We can’t help that. Just do the best we can. Down the road, it is our belief that the third week in June every year can be the most important week of the year for officiating. I think other organizations can also bring their people together at the same time to create truly an officiating conference, as it should be. In effect, every group can have their own separate meetings to take care of business; come together for the big general sessions, come together for the very nice social functions, and all of us will be doing the thing that NASO said it wanted to do back in 1980 — which is to be a facilitating organization for groups to come together and share experiences and learn from each other.
Summary. That train is just now starting to leave the station. So we’re very, very pleased about the things that happened during this past year. Still, we can do better.
We’ve been doing well for our members but we can do better. More than anything else we do, you, the members are critical, and we’ll stay focused on the responsibility we have to you. Thank you so much!
Several attendees to the NASO "Successful Officiating Conference 2001" were among those interviewed by ABC News Nightline Producer Greg Macek following the June 18 session on sportsmanship.
At press time, NASO had not been informed when the program might air, but ABC News was on site at the conference to gather background information and footage for use for a program addressing the sportsmanship problem.
The panel session, moderated by Referee Editor Bill Topp, included Citizenship Through Sports Alliance Chair Dan Boggan Jr., National Federation of State High School Associations Executive Director Bob Kanaby, and NFL Director of Officiating Mike Pereira.
ABC requested NASO’s public service announcement and the NFL video on sportsmanship as part of its research.
Due to the short notice given by the networks when airing such a program, NASO will alert subscribers of the NASO Lockerroom once it learns the airing date. If you are not a subscriber to the free NASO Lockerroom service, you can subscribe by going to www.naso.org and linking to the NASO Lockerroom icon.
NASO is looking for an individual with professional experience as a grant writer. This position does not require moving to the association headquarters in Racine.
The vast majority of all NASO income is currently raised through membership dues and is reinvested in membership benefit programs. It is the goal of the association to find funding from government and private grant resources in order to support the educational mission of NASO.
If you have experience in this area, please contact Tom Herre at 262/632-5448 or at therre@naso.org.
Is there a sports official in your community who goes that extra mile to support youth sports programs? Does that person stand out from others as one dedicated and committed to making youth programs better? Have you ever wondered how you might be able to honor that person? It’s simple. Nominate them for the 2001 SGMA Heroes Award.
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines the word "hero" as a great or illustrious person. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association simply defines it as a person who makes sports happen. The combination of the two definitions is the backdrop for the SGMA Heroes Awards. This program recognizes, honors and rewards those individuals who volunteer their time, money and energy to locally run sports programs. Now in its eighth year, the program is dedicated to paying tribute to those outstanding people who make a significant contribution to the pursuit of sports excellence, sportsmanship and opportunity in their community. Those honored range from parents and coaches to program innovators and league officials. Selfless volunteers ensure that playing surfaces are ready; teams and players have uniforms; administrative duties are completed; officials and referees are assigned games; and game results are reported to the media.
Since the inception of the SGMA Heroes Awards in 1994, nearly 350 volunteers (and one family) from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, representing 249 cities, involved with more than 50 different sports, have been recognized for their lasting and meaningful role in the continuation of recreational and competitive local sports.
All 51 state/district winners receive $100, and $400 donated to the sports charity of each winner’s choice. Three national winners receive an additional $11,000 apiece – $10,000 for their favorite sports charity and $1,000 for themselves.
The nomination period opened in mid-March and closes on Aug. 31. To nominate your local sports hero, obtain a nomination form on the Internet at www.SGMA.com/heroes.
- NASO and Referee accepts calls from 7:45 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. Central Time, Monday through Thursday. On Friday's the office hours are 7:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
