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Open Letter to Coaches
By John Milstead
December 24, 2001
(Editor's Note: This open letter to coaches
was printed in the October issue of 'The
Leaguer,' the official publication of the
Texas University Interscholastic League.
I had been discussing the need for such
an article with Dr. Charles Breithaupt,
the UIL's Athletic Director for several
months in the hope that someone would write
it
from a coach's perspective. Dr. Breithaup asked me
to write it, and I did in the hope that coaches and
administrators would come to realize their obligations
in helping fill our membership rosters. In Texas,
as in every other state, we have a shortage of officials
in almost every chapter and sport.)
MY FRIENDS, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Since 1964, I've been chasing your kids up and down
football fields and basketball courts. I was fortunate
to start officiating as a freshman in college, and
have enjoyed almost every minute. If the World War
II generation was the greatest generation of Americans,
the Baby Boomers have been the most fortunate generation
insofar as the proliferation of sports is concerned.
I've been lucky to have had 'the best seat in the
house' for over 3,000 basketball games and over 1,100
football games. And I'm grateful.
In your coaching careers, you've enjoyed that same
opportunity to see athletics develop to the point
where high school kids now routinely do things that
even professionals couldn't do in the mid-60's. You've
developed your skills, your programs and your kids
to accomplish amazing things. Many of you are coaching
sons or daughters of your former players. I hope
you've enjoyed it, because unless you take immediate
and aggressive action, it's going to start falling
down around
your ears - and it's your fault.
Over the past few years, the on-field and on-court
relationship between coaches and officials has become
increasingly adversarial. As the pressure on you
to win has become a higher reality, it has replaced
or at least reduced the pressure to demonstrate the
higher ideals of sportsmanship and fair play. Sportsmanship
has been nudged to the side in favor of gamesmanship.
In this environment your tolerance levels have been
reduced to near zero for any perceived error on our
part in your games. In the 37 years I've been officiating,
the level of conflict between officials and coaches
during games has accelerated at an alarming rate.
Many of you think that part of the game is to try
to intimidate officials, and some make it an art
form.
On the other hand, you work long hours to get those
kids ready to play well and hard, and you may work
for several series to set up one play only to have
it ruined by a penalty or a violation. And admittedly,
sometimes some of us really are bad. It must be overwhelming
to have to handle your administration, your kids,
their parents, your booster clubs, and the UIL, and
get it all about where you think it ought to be;
and then have five insurance salesmen drive up in
a brand new Suburban and screw it all up for you.
You should be able to vent your frustration, shouldn't
you ? We certainly have it in our power to penalize
any unacceptable behavior on your part. When I first
started officiating, a coach who made any derogatory
remark was penalized immediately - no questions asked.
The UIL encourages and
supports us to be intolerant of anything that 'isn't
education.' Every rule book has sportsmanship and
ethics as points of emphasis.
However, over time what we actually enforce and require
of you has changed. Now we are encouraged by our
chapters to be more tolerant. We are taught at camps
and clinics that you are under great pressure, and
we should try our best not to affect the game or
hurt the kids by penalizing your bad behavior.
We learn that if we penalize you, we are disciplining
a teacher in front of his or her students. And, the
point that should influence us the least: we know
that if we penalize you, we may very well not work
at your school again, regardless of our skill level,
because you're generally an unforgiving bunch.
It would be bad enough if this situation only involved
coaches and officials, but the real problem is that
it most impacts your kids. You demonstrate to them
that strong adults don't hesitate to abuse and insult
other adults - and those in authority at that. You're
their heroes, and if you do it, it must be right.
This is a lesson they learn well from you.
And we're enablers. The kids see us tolerate that
behavior. If we accept or don't respond to constant
questioning of our calls, our ability and our integrity,
that must mean Coach is right, right' It doesn't
matter that they don't realize that if we were ever
to respond in kind, our officiating career would
be over that night. This leads me to my real point.
Our numbers are diminishing as yours are growing.
The people we need so that our our numbers will grow
are in your programs. After being coached to play
the game, they can be more easily taught to officiate
it. The problem is that after your kids spend their
time in your programs watching how you, their heroes,
treat officials, they don't want to have anything
to do with officiating.
Currently, there are too many games and not enough
qualified officials. At the sub-varsity level, we
have numerous games covered by half a crew, or officiated
by coaches. We try to recruit through the various
means available to us, however we're fighting a difficult
battle, primarily because you don't help.
You want numbers' Last year (2000-2001) we recruited
158 new basketball officials for the Houston Chapter.
I'm not aware of a single one who was referred to
us by a former coach. We put them through as complete
a training program as there is in the country. We
tried (and for the most part, succeeded) to assign
our new officials with experienced officials at every
game. We had special in-season training meetings
for first- and second-year officials. At the end
of the season, 23 re-joined the chapter. Most of
the ones who opted not to come back cited the abuse
from coaches as their primary reason for quitting.
Before we can get them trained to move up, you've
run them off. And every time you throw out an insult
at an official on the floor or field, your kids become
that much more convinced they will not become officials.
A recent article published by the National Federation
contained research about why officials quit. The
largest group, 43 percent, cited poor sportsmanship
on the part of players, coaches and fans, with 36
percent citing job/career demands. Most of these
are in their first few years of officiating.
At that stage, we have coaches learning to coach,
players learning to play and referees learning to
referee - the worst possible combination. We also
have parents just getting started on unreasonable
expectations for their children's athletic careers.
Those new coaches invariably gain experience and
grow into their jobs. The parents generally continue
to have unreasonable expectations. However many of
the officials decide that it's just not worth leaving
work to get to a 4:30 game to have people abuse and
insult them for two hours.
Before we can teach them how to avoid, or at least
mitigate the unpleasantries and actually have fun,
we've lost them. Our chapters get blamed for sending
you unqualified officials, when in truth, it's just
not possible for us to send you new people who will
start out perfect and then gradually improve.
This will eventually result in occupational suicide
on your part. Right now, we have real problems covering
your sub-varsity games. In another 15 years, we'll
be having the same problems covering your varsity
games. You'll be upset with our chapters for failing
to grow and train.
The truth is that training for officials has never
been better. In every sport we're doing more and
doing better to teach all our members rules, mechanics,
philosophy and common sense officiating. The growing
part is where we need your help.
The solution to our numbers problem is in your hands.
If you don't make two changes immediately, you are
headed for a crisis-situation caused by a severe
shortage of qualified officials. Those changes are:
1. Start sending us your ex-players to become new
officials.
If you want a really lasting influence and legacy,
help us keep your kids in the game throughout their
adult lives. We'll provide them an opportunity to
stay in the game they love and to earn some pocket
change while they're doing it.
We need about two ex-players annually from every
football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, swimming,
softball and baseball team in the state. If we get
those numbers from you (we certainly have room for
more), we could staff your games at every level,
and keep the pipeline full of well-trained, qualified
officials for your varsity games.
If you want to help us, don't make some half-hearted
announcement about 'anyone interested in officiating
should call'' Respect your ex-players enough to encourage
them individually and tell them how important it
is to your sport that people like them become interested
and involved in officiating.
Follow up with both your local officiating chapter
and your ex-players to check their commitment and
progress. You have to be an aggressive part of this
solution or you will remain a major part of the problem.
Invite us to speak to your kids and your booster
clubs about what we do. Many of our members have
advanced presentation skills, and we'd welcome the
opportunity to do some PR work. It will clearly demonstrate
to your players and parents that we are on the same
team and working toward the same goals of developing
competitive athletes into productive adults.
2. Reduce the level of conflict your create with
officials.
The contentiousness, animosity, sarcasm, insults,
intimidation and abusive language has to stop. It
dishonors sport and teaches the wrong lessons. It
also costs us our newest members and our best source
of new officials - your former players.
The result in many chapters is that we have a significant
number of very senior and very new officials. The
mid-range is empty. While officiating is tremendously
enjoyable, many of our members decide every year
there is not enough enjoyment to offset the conflict
- it takes the joy right out of the activity.
If you have a complaint, certainly you should address
it, but we'll hear you whether you're polite or abusive.
An abusive coach loses his credibility with the officiating
crew almost immediately. They hear only the abuse,
not the content. If you'll work with us, we'll work
with you. If you voice your complaints constructively,
we'll listen and respond.
I hope you will receive this message in the spirit
it is intended. I've been watching you for a long
time. I understand the frustration of working hard
and those of your assistants and players to prepare
to play a game, only to have to turn a good portion
of it over to the officiating crew. The message we
need you to receive is that we're working hard to
train officials in every sport.
The quality of your games depends in large part on
the quality of our officials, and we're absolutely
getting better. However, ours is an impossible task
without your aggressive and proactive support.
You've trusted us with your games, now trust us with
your kids as they grow into mature men and women.
This is a shared need to keep your profession and
our avocation growing and viable. You send'em to
us. We'll teach'em to officiate, and keep'em in the
game. And we'll all win.
John Milstead
Nassau Bay, Texas
October 2001