Generally speaking, I would think everyone who is employee is evaluated at some point on their performance. Most of us have nervously and, hopefully, eagerly awaited the trip to the boss’ office so that he or she can assess your past year’s work, ask for comments, offer you suggestions to improve, and set the goals for the upcoming year. Once you hear that there ACTUALLY are goals for the next twelve months, you are then pretty much assured that your job is safe until the next evaluation. Hopefully you exit the office with a smile on your face.
But what if you were evaluated every day you came to work? What if each single, solitary decision you made throughout the work day was rated by an observer? What if your ability to continue working at your current level was dependent upon the watchful eye and determined by an outside judge? What if bystanders were allowed to boo or cheer your decisions to try and influence the evaluator? You probably believe none of this could possibly happen. Well, you are wrong.
High school basketball officials work under the stipulations listed above throughout the regular season, the district playoffs, and the state playoffs. Since we are currently in the state playoffs, let me describe the system at work. A game evaluator, normally a retired official who over the years has literally earned his stripes and credibility, will be assigned a game. Every state playoff game has one.
Once the game begins, every whistle, every stoppage, every potential whistle, every rule interpretation, and every situation is judged. The categories are familiar to a basketball fan – foul, violation, held ball, technical, no call. Accuracy is described as follows: Correct Call, Incorrect Call, No-call Correct, No-call Incorrect. There are usually @ 50 decisions assessed in every game, sometimes many more, sometimes less.
After the contest ends, there is a post-game assessment between the officials and the evaluator. In a generalized fashion, the evaluator discusses situations, offers helpful tools to improve performance based on years of experience, and jointly analyzes the entire game. No individual is ever called out in front of his peers. It is not adversarial in any way.
The evaluation is then sent to the state with thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of a given crew. The PIAA then decides future assignments based on the evaluations.
The entire process has one goal in mind – improve the quality of the men and women who are working the games. And what fan does not want that?
There may be a lesson to be learned here for all of us. I certainly am not advocating that someone follows us around all day, but it would not hurt if we all did some self-evaluation every now and then of all aspects of our lives. If we could move closer to improving our “correct calls” and decreasing the “incorrect calls”, we would all benefit. Try it.
ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)
- If anyone was shocked by the early exits of all but three of our District XI representatives in the state playoffs, you weren’t watching all season. It was not a quality year in the Lehigh Valley. However, the Parkland boys’ and the Bethlehem Catholic girls’ teams were outstanding and, as I write this, continue to compete. I am not surprised.
- Look at the unbelievable circumstances that led to Lafayette getting the Patriot League championship game at home – (1) Lafayette needed to beat Army in the last regular season game in order for Lafayette to qualify for a quarterfinal home game (they did); (2) Holy Cross needed to upset Boston University in the final game played in the regular season in order for Lafayette to actually get a quarterfinal home game (they did); (3) #4 seed Lafayette needed to beat #5 seed Boston University, a team that beat them by 14 at home in their previous match-up (they did); (4) #4 seed Lafayette needed to upset #1 seed Bucknell at Bucknell, a feat NEVER accomplished before in the Patriot League semifinals (they did); (5) #6 American University needed to beat #2 Colgate in the following game for Lafayette to get a home championship game (they did). Up next – the championship game AT Lafayette. Lafayette has never lost a Patriot League tournament game at home –uh-oh!!
- An intriguing thought – should Lafayette win the Patriot League, I’m guessing they would have to play in the play-in game. Some projections say the opponent would be St. Francis/Brooklyn which features Jalen Cannon of Allen High School. Jalen, a 1,000 point scorer, was the Northeast Conference Player of the Year.
- Bracketology is one week away. Is there a real college basketball fan willing to pick against Kentucky?
- The Philadelphia professional football, basketball, hockey, and baseball front offices all seem to be cleaning house at the same time. Is it for the better? Probably not. But at least the Philly fan base is a patient bunch – SAY WHAT?
