Vice President – High School

2009 Year-end Report to AGM

The 2009 High School Football season is in the books. Notwithstanding the ongoing challenges, of which I shall comment on later, I believe we all can be proud of the service that was provided by BCFOA to our largest client.

High School football continues to grow and expand it seems in all directions and one of the challenges continues to be scheduling. This year for the first time saw a Northern Division based in Prince George. Greg Barnes and I travelled to Prince George in the spring to provide training to the small group of officials and coaches. I believe our clinic made a difference for them. They will however need more than our brief involvement if they are to succeed in future seasons.

Altogether this year high school football fielded 131 teams competing in seven leagues. In 2009 there were 836 games posted in Arbiter including GSL, High school, Community, Junior, CISL, and CFL. 572 of those games were high school, add another 50 GSL and you have over 600 games covered by those who officiated high school football.

BCFOA has evolved in recent years to the point that in order to meet the demands and ensure ongoing success of the Association your executive members must dedicate themselves to the task of managing the Association each and every month for the entire year. As we members leave the AGM and get on with our lives until next season, your executive will immediately begin planning for the next season. This work will start with a meeting right after the AGM and end with next years AGM. Countless hours in between the two will ensure another successful season.

Highlights/Lowlights

Recruitment:

High School Football year after year has pretty much left the task of recruitment up to BCFOA. Even though in our view recruitment must be a shared responsibility we have been left to our own resources each year. Over the past 5 years we have made this an ongoing priority. In each of the last 3 years we have recruited enough new officials to avert a full-blown crisis, certainly in the Lower Mainland and Interior. The Island remains a serious concern however not just for a dearth of officials but also those that are able to white hat. Recruitment must continue to be a continuing priority everywhere but much more so for the Island.

Retention:

Even though we were able to recruit well over a dozen new officials in each of the last three years we have only been able to retain about half of those numbers. Retention needs to be given serious attention. The Director of Member Services must become involved in this task as a number one priority. Mentoring needs to be looked at. The incentives we have provided like reimbursement of expenses for first year officials should be continued regardless of the situation of our lack of Lottery funding.

We held two Level 1 clinics this year, one in April and one in August. While this is a good introduction to high school football officiating we need to ensure that our recruits are provided continued opportunity for training on a weekly basis early in the high school football season.

With our recent successes in recruitment and improvement in education for our rookies I believe we will begin to see improvement in this part of the program.

Education:

In the last two years we have made a significant effort to provide a more positive experience for education of our seasoned officials. Significantly, we have adopted the “Blue Book” as our mechanics manual and this in itself has minimized if not eliminated the ongoing controversy we have experienced in this association over correct mechanics. This year we held only 3 clinics in the Lower Mainland. This in itself is a bit of a low light but given that there were no less than 25 members attending each of these meetings, it leads me to believe that we are on the right track to reversing a negative trend that three years ago saw clinics with only three or four members attending. The BCFOA has made a significant financial commitment to the use of technology including, presentation software, enhanced video training, graphics and customized training programs that allows for interactive participation of members. This needs to continue and be enhanced. Future education must continue to include the use of technology strategies that provide interest, variety and interactivity. We also know that self-study is a big part of training. Our members must be encouraged to take advantage of self-training opportunities. Technology can play a significant role in this initiative. There is a long way to go but we have made a good start on education reform.

On a separate note the Interior group are to be highly commended for following through on weekly clinics over the course of the season. Hopefully in future seasons we will have the ability to provide a consistent education program across the province.

Observation/Evaluation

We have had great expectations for this activity, but unfortunately with competing priorities not enough has been accomplished. Our officials need feedback on a regular basis. We need to do much more work in this area in future years to ensure quality education.

Always the optimist!

After six years as vice president it is time to hand over responsibilities to a new vice president. Quite frankly I have mixed feelings about leaving. On one hand I feel that I need a break to reprioritize my own life, you know, family, retirement, fishing, but on the other hand I know how much there is to accomplish and how much I want to be a part of it. There is always much to do.

In closing I want to thank the usual suspects:

Greg Barnes for his continued leadership role as past president.

Ben Eskildsen for his efforts with education and observation.

Bill Watson for his tireless dedication to football in general, his sage personal advice and his great help with the playoff committee.

Jamie Graham for his skill at managing a nightmare lower mainland schedule schedule that high school football thrusts upon us year after year.

Mike Gatto for being Mike Gatto!

Al Milton, Ross Thompson, Darryl Hern, Bert Ducharme for all their work in the Interior.

To the other members of the executive team for their efforts to improve football officiating and their assistance in helping me do my job.

And finally to all our members who work on the field for little or no glory and very little pay. Thank you for your patience while we have tried to work things out for the betterment of football officiating, without you we would be nowhere at all.

Respectfully submitted

Tim Lederman

Vice President