The Benefits of Officiating and How Volleyball Provides Unique Opportunities for Individual Developm

Every January there is a mad dash around the Puget Sound Region as athletes and coaches complete all of their requirements to be eligible to compete in the opening round of Puget Sound Region Power League. Front and center among the tasks at hand is making sure that every team has all of their coaches and at least six players certified to officiate. It is a big aministrative hurdle for the players, the coaches, the club directors and the Region staff to jump through, which leads to the question-

"Why do we have to go through the offiiciating courses? Why can't we just play volleyball?"

Here is the answer...

Volleyball is unique in the fact that the athletes are responsible for officiating matches between other teams. In basketball, football, baseball and most other junior sports, the participants are not required to officiate. This responsiblity ensures that volleyball players understand first hand the challenges of officiating and respect the skills and effort that go into being able to officiate a volleyball match.

If junior hockey players had to officiate as well, would the officials still get booed before the start of every period when they come onto the ice at Everett Silverstips games?

If peewee football players had to serve as officials, would otherwise sane fathers still jump off their couches on Sunday afternoons to call the officials in NFL games names?

If Little League baseball players had to serve as umpires during their youth sports careers, would they still share the general opinion that the Umps are blind?

Or, would we all develop an appreciation of what it is like to officiate a sporting event if we had to do it ourselves as part of our development in the game?

Would we better understand the rules of the game if we were required to be the one enforcing them?

Would we respect the game, the officials and our opponents a bit more if we had the perspective gained from doing the job of officiating?

Would we have more tolerence for human error with regards to snap judgements made by sports officials if we had to make those same decisions ourselves and stand by them?

My guess is that the answer to the first three quesitons in most, not all, situations would be no and that the answers to the last four questions posed above would be yes. Here is a question that I will leave you to ponder.

Are our junior volleyball athletes developing as both athletes and individuals when they step into an officiating role and are required to interpret and enforce the rules of the game of volleyball?

Thank you all for taking the time to complete your officiating requirments. To those of you who had difficulties with the process, we apologize. We assure you that we are working to better the process each season.