I hope all of you are having a great season. Thank you for all your comments about the tournaments and about the officials. Please take time to note my email address for future reference, Mathexp@aol.com. It takes some time for the Tournament Evaluation forms to get to me since the Tournament Director sends them in to the office first for review and then the office forwards to me. So, if you have something occur at a tournament concerning the officials that needs addressing quickly, feel free to send me an email. I need immediate feedback if you have a problem with an official. Please keep in mind that these officials are giving up their valuable time to support this sport that we all love. The pay is not the highest in the land, but they are doing it for the kids just as the coaches/parents are. So, the next time you you're at a tournament and want to complain about some call made/missed, try to remember what these youth sporting events are about. Still, I would like them to do a good job and help the girls have a good experience. I realize there will always be two sides to the story and the perspective is not quite the same on both sides. I have tried to have enough refs to give breaks so there should be no one sitting down for the day and watching. If the first referee is doing a good job, the adult official is to be helping the second referee or the scorekeeper. I hope this is what is happening at your tournaments.
At this time in the season hopefully the girls have gotten better and there is less explaining/training to do on the adult officials perspective. However, for those coaches that are putting their seventh and eighth girl on the stand because "everyone needs to do it" then the game is going to be slowed down, not because of the adult officials but because you have chosen to use someone who is not trained/experienced. I am hearing from many officials that this is happening and they must train a new ref. This will slow down the game if the adult official does their job correctly.
Please let me know how my officials are doing (both positive and negative). I hope you have a great time at your Regional Championships!