Spring Referee Development Wrap-up

At this point, we have closed out the Spring 15s season and are into 7s! I wanted to take a moment to report back on the spring development initiatives, outline where we saw successes, open up to feedback, and start to think about the fall.

I would first like to preface that the spring season was short compared to the fall and there were multiple last minute match cancellations. The 7s schedule is also light and not everyone participates in 7s so opportunities for coaching are limited. The fall season is longer, more robust, and tons of opportunities for you to officiate and have a coach.

The coaching plan this past spring was to assign coaches with intention. We heard that you wanted consistency and more structure. The goal was to pair up coaches with people so over the duration of your officiating, coaching would attempt progression. Again, this was hard with the shortened schedule and cancellations but it gave us an idea of how things could work this fall. 

Successes:

• Bringing back long lost coaches! – We kicked off the spring with re-engaged past referee coaches that have been a bit removed from the society and getting them back into the fold. Some coaches didn’t make it out to matches but they have been active participants on our biweekly calls.
• Coaches Meetings – We held biweekly meetings where we discussed our plans to develop referees, identified needs and things we wanted to change, and talked about ways we could even develop our coaches. The meetings served as a way for us to talk holistically about referees with the focus on how we continue to focus on our people and build our talent.
• Referee Skill Matrix – I connected with Amanda Cox and provided the latest skills matrix to the coaches for vetting and will share with you all too. This is a resource to help give you an idea of what skills and areas you should be proficient in based on your grade level. This isn’t going to be black and white, it is a starting point, but should give you some structure as you think about your development and when you have conversations with your coaches.

I welcome your feedback. I am not going to send out anything formal at this time but if you have something you want to get off your chest, something that you were appreciative of from the season to something you would like to see changed or offered in the fall, I will always accept your feedback. We will re-engage you all more formally going into the fall so you can wait if you wish.

Looking ahead to the fall: As noted, we will reach out later this summer as we start to gear up for the fall schedule. Take this summer to reflect on the spring and think about your aspirations for the fall. I like the OKR format and highly recommend you read up on it if you are interested in being intentional about your development.

https://quantive.com/resources/articles/okr-meaning

We are hoping to also have more group development opportunities with team training sessions early in the fall season and maybe again at UIC. We had an excellent session with the Sport Psychology department and hope to continuously re-engage them throughout the season. 

As schedules come in for the fall, probably not until August, it is really important that you get your availability in and we get an idea of your aspirations. We have also been working with Laura to assign referees with intention and the more time we have, the more focused we can be.

Thanks again for your patience. Hope you all are having a wonderful summer and fall will be here before you know it!!