How We Treat Officials Matters

(The following excerpt is from a presentation entitled "Standards, On and Off the Court," by John E. (Jack) Roberts to the Midwest Officials Summit hosted by the MHSAA Sept. 21-23, 2003.)

Some of you may have read the book, Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers. It encourages the hunt for and removal or reengineering of products, processes and programs that we cling to long after their usefulness has waned ("sacred cows").

While I, like most people, have some reluctance to change – and there are some things I refuse to change – we have been hunting for "sacred cows" in our workplace for several years. Many things as yet remain unexamined. Some things have been examined and have so far survived, for example, the Michigan Weight Monitoring Program. Other things that have been examined have not escaped unchanged: we are redesigning services to two of our basic constituent groups, the athletic director in-service program and our coaches' education program, both started in 1987.

A third constituent group – officials – presents an interesting challenge. Officials are independent contractors from whom the MHSAA must keep an arm's-length relationship. However, they're the only folks at contests who wear the MHSAA label, who wear the MHSAA patch of registration.

During the decade of the 1990s, we slayed the "sacred cow" that says: "Keep away from officials or you'll turn independent contractors into employees." We focused new efforts not directly on officials but on their support systems: assisting leaders of local officials associations, training trainers, in-servicing assignors, providing publications and videotapes, expanding the use of technology, expanding recognition programs, expanding recruitment efforts, like the Legacy Student Official Program, which helped us set an all-time record in 2002-03 with 12,138 registered officials, a ten percent increase over four years.

But to declare our work done would be to turn this work into another "sacred cow." The work is not done. In fact, the challenges are huge. Our best officials are better than ever, but so are the contests – faster, higher, more physical and talented – and the gap between the game and the abilities of the majority of officials may be widening. So we must keep prodding this cow, and we're making plans to do so.

Beyond the immediate plans, however, is this ultimate goal: that high school officiating is the most respected in this state on any level.

The first objection one hears to such a bold goal is, "Surely we can't surpass the pros or even colleges. They have full-time officials, they have tons of money for training, they have the latest technology, they have limited numbers so they can provide more immediate feedback, they have coveted positions so they can be more exclusive."

Yes, they have all that and more. But they don't have this: they don't work in pure, wholesome, amateur, educational athletics. They work in entertainment athletics. They are part of sports business and they may forever be tainted by that and the big game fees and expense accounts that they receive. They will not get the benefit of the doubt; they will be expected to be perfect, and they won't be.

We may be miles ahead of college and professional officials on the road to becoming the most credible and respected officials because of the level we serve: school sports. Unfortunately, we wring our hands and whine about what we don't have. We cite lack of money and other resources. We cite lack of numbers.

I'm here to tell you that we can do more with less, that we can get to higher levels of credibility and respectability than any other level of sports officiating and do so without all the glitz and glamour.

We don't get there by fighting with officials. We don't get there by angering officials or threatening them. We don't even get there by testing officials and rating officials, although those things are not bad.

We get to our goal by three E's: by encouraging officials, by evaluating officials, and most of all by giving officials an environment in which they can thrive.
The first and foremost requirement – the prerequisite – for having an officiating corps with credibility is not officials' responsibility but ours. Schools and their state high school associations have to assure the program is wholesome and educational. We have to assure the program stays amateur, relatively non-commercial, and local. We have to assure the program is sportsmanlike and sane. We have to advance policies that tend to assure these things. We have to espouse such philosophy consistently and persuasively.

In this state, the media and athletic directors often kid the MHSAA communications director and me for our incessant sportsmanship messages on television, radio, public address announcements, in tournament programs and on banners. We don't apologize for this. Here's why:

Near the end of the book, Revival of the Fittest, which is about the qualities that allow some companies to recover after decline while others do not, the author writes, "Managers often err when they state their commitment once or twice, maybe send out a memo or two, and then assume that the rest of the organization will act on it.
"ARE YOU SICK OF REPEATING? If not, you must say it more often.

"DO YOUR MANAGERS ROLL THEIR EYES WHEN YOU REPEAT YOUR MESSAGE? Eye rolling is a good sign – it shows that they already recognize your theme."

We all know that bad sportsmanship is the main reason we can't recruit or retain officials. Therefore, very likely the best thing that we could ever have done for officials has had nothing to do with officiating directly. It's had to do with sportsmanship: raising the standards of conduct for players and coaches and raising the awareness of administrators and the public. People report today the chants, cheers and signs that they tolerated 10 years ago. We have raised the bar, and people have become more sensitive and responsive.

The first thing, the last thing and the all-the-time thing we must do to raise standards in officiating is to raise the standard of conduct at the contests.

Beyond that, we also have some standards of expectations for our schools toward officials. For example, that they rate officials. We have standards for the hosting of officials that we publish in a brochure. We have also adopted the Covenant with Sports Officials and published it in the MHSAA Handbook, Officials Guidebook and Bulletin.
How we treat officials does have an effect on how the public treats officials. If schools show disrespect in how we host and assign officials, how can we expect anything better from the public?

— John E. "Jack" Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director