The document discusses developing expertise in sports officiating. It notes that becoming an elite referee can take 16 years of practice and experience on average. Research suggests it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve expert performance. The document advocates for developing long-term athlete development models for officials that define the skills needed at each level and when they should be acquired. It also discusses the importance of defining what constitutes a practice for officials and ensuring they receive proper coaching and feedback to support skill acquisition.
5. Current “ To secure the presence of intelligent, unprejudiced, courageous umpires at all contests in scheduled games has been one of our most vexatious problems confronting those in control of our national sport” Kennesaw Mountain Landis, Former Baseball Commissioner
11. Sport Psych Adapted from mcmahon and plessner (2008) What is an Official? Interactors Reactors Monitors Boxing Referee Basketball Referee Cricket Umpire Football Referee Volleyball 1 st Referee Gymnastics Judge Tennis Line Judge Volleyball 2 nd Referee
12. Sport Psych “ The lack of feedback from practice explains why the sub sample of FIFA referees took 16 years of practice and experience on average to reach the elite level of the sport. When compared with the ‘‘10-year rule’’ within the expertise and deliberate practice literature, this is a longer ‘‘training’’ period than reported previously.” McMahon, Helsen, Starkes and Weston (2006)
14. Sport Psych “… until by age 20 they were practicing – that is, purposefully and single mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better …” M. Gladwell, Outliers , p. 38-39
15. Practicing 0 + X = 10,000 X = Hours of Practice X ≠ Games X ≠ War Stories X ≠ “Experience”
24. What Now? The Ringette LTOD Process FUNdamentals Learning to Train Training to Train Training to Compete Training to Win Athletic Skills Training Requirements Resource Requirements Recovery Requirements
27. What Now? What If? ...we started our officiating development system from scratch? Would it look like what we have now?
28. What Now? What If? ...coaches took responsibility for the health and welfare of all the children in the game?
29. What Now? What If? ...judges/referees and coaches could tell each other what they saw during a game or performance?
30. What Now? What If? ...we stopped losing 1/2 of our new officials every year?
31. What Now? What If? ...our athletes had the benefit of world class officiating from day one?
32. What Now? What If? ...I actually left enough time at the end for questions and discussion?!
33. Selected References Anshel, M. H. (1995). Development of a rating scale for determining competence in basketball referees: Implications for sport psychology. Sport Psychologist, 9 (1), 4-28. Balyi, I., Cardinal, C., Higgs, C., Norris, S. & Way, R. (2005). Long-term athlete development - Canadian Sport for life. Retrieved March 10, 2009, 2009, from http://www.ltad.ca/Groups/LTAD%20Downloads/English/LTAD_Resource_Paper.pdf Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success . New York: Little, Brown and Co. Helsen, W. F., Starkes, J. L., & Hodges, N. J. (1998). Team sports and the theory of deliberate practice. / les sports dequipe et la theorie de la pratique choisie. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 20 (1), 12-34. MacMahon, C., & Plessner, H. (2008). The sport official in research and practice. In D. Farrow, J. Baker & C. MacMahon (Eds.), Developing sports expertise: Researchers and coaches put theory into practice (pp. 172-192). New York: Routledge. MacMahon, C., Helsen, W. F., Starkes, J. L., & Weston, M. (2007). Decision-making skills and deliberate practice in elite association football referees. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25 (1), 65-78 .
I have refereed 7 sports at the varsity level over the years. I have never judged anything before – i need to acknowledge that difference. I have learned that officiating is part art, part science and that the art varies very little from sport to sport, and the science varies a great deal....
Bkin from Ucalgary MSc from Sacramento State Working on PhD from Uottawa ED at Ringette Canada
This quote is from the 1950s. It is no less true now than then. Why hasn`t officiating progressed as quickly as the athletes and coaches? What is taking us so long?
Ringette is doing good work here. We are not the only ones. FIFA`s system is good in that it is the same around the world, hockey in Canada does a good job as does basketball (with a free standing officials association).
160 million is based on stats Can assessment of 800,000 officials in Canada – assumes they all get $200 in game fees per year as an average.... Therefore, there is a financial stake for our sports in terms of improving officiating....
Great officiating helps create great athletes. Bay and Morneau would not have a good eye at the plate if they had grown up with poor umpiring (think of the dominican players who tend to grow up without an umpire at all and swing at everything...)
Is the official more like a player or more like the zamboni driver? If more like the player, we need to treat them more like a player and players must get development....
If any of the legs on the table fail to grow, the table gets out of whack....
You can react to this how you want. The point is that we need to look at officiating the way we look at disciplines in our sports (beach volleyball players train differently than indoor)
Officials take longer to develop than players. Also note that in the same study they examined rules knowledge between players and officials. Officials could identify fouls better, meaning that ‘osmosis’ is not a relialbe method for learning the rules and interpretations.
The 10,000 hours to mastery rule applies to violinists (see Outliers again), piano players and even real estate agents. Why would we think that as officials we might be exempt from this rule?
Practice is not just a matter of getting on the field/ice/court/deck. Practicing requires being intentional
This is an overview of a typical ringette referee. Pretty typical for many sports....
Could be rules study, could be an evaluation could be a classroom session. There are lots of options for creating practice experiences.
JF Ethier chaired the committee and did incredible work on the matrix The committee was guided by the RC Sport Development Director (and LTAD guru) Frances Losier
