Like many sports, Swimming - no, like most sports there continues to be a decline in the availability of officials for competition. 2020 and 2021 were tough years, losing so many sporting events a good number of existing officials simply stepped away from the activity for one reason or another. Three years later, I've seen a small increase in swimming - across both state, WIAA swimming & diving officials as well as Wisconsin Swimming (LSC) for clubs across the state.
This increase is no where near what we need. I enjoy working 12-15 high school girl and 10-12 high school boy meets along with 8-10 club meets a year. But there is a constant ask for coverage - someone is sick, working, or another personal reason causes them to have to backout. Unfortunately it's really hard to get another official to help.
Enough on that challenge of availability - one of the reasons I hear about from parents and other officials is the effort it takes to get trained, certified and recertified. In the past it was a 2-3 hour meeting in some location that you had to drive to. Covid changed this - those meetings became virtual meaning now you just sit down at your home or local coffee shop and jump on zoom and listen.
Both of these were awkward to most folks. They didn't know the people hosting the training. They lacked experience and felt uncomfortable talking, let alone turning on their camera. These meetings usually dragged on with someone talking endlessly. Topics were not always spot on the training material and sometimes didn't provide enough content to make the person feel more confident. Worse is training from one state to another would be taught differently so you may learn things differently or not learn at all in some situations.
This made the entry for new officials very challenging to overcome. I personally saw the difference between Florida and Wisconsin. It wasn't night and day - but there were very obvious differences that I had to accept and at times tactfully try to influence change in. More on this later.
Enter 2024 and the new online training videos from USA Swimming. It's a welcome change from those in person and virtual meetings. You do have to create a free account but after that you can access the online videos, for Foundations of Swimming, Concussion Protocol, Athlete Protection and the meet of the trainings, Stroke & Turn, Starter, Referee, Administrative Official. These videos now provide a clear, consistent standard for all officials across the entirety of USA Swimming. I applaud USA Swimming for this monumental shift it is something that other organizations have done for years and will now set the state LSC on a common path to not force different trainings or requirements on individuals.
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| USA Swimming Officials Training Dashboard |
My hope is that parents, guardians and young adults will jump in and watch the videos for two reasons. The first, to understand the role of the officials and to better understand how rules are enforced and how to help talk with their children when they are disqualified from an event. Second, I'm hoping it gives these folks the desire to step up and complete their deck apprenticeships and complete the open book test. This could drastically increase the number of officials available. Reducing the burden on myself and other long term officials from having to officiate most weekends and many evenings during high schools easons.
I also hope that it changes the mindset of the LSC leadership. These boards are designed to take the rules, policies and direction of the USA Swimming board and apply them at the state level. But lessening the possibility of setting their own variations of the rules and interpretations of the same rules. It'll also give our swimmers a more fair "playing field" when the officials at any level and any location are trained to the same standards.
To get deeper into the discussion of declining officials numbers and the differences I have personally seen between two different state LSCs follow me on my podcast, feel free to comment here or on X or on my podcast.
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/betweenthelanelines
See you on pool deck.
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