Defining Roles and Responsibilities of Officials.

The individual official will feel ready to officiate only by understanding his/her role and responsibilities on and off the court.

Understanding one's role and responsibilities and accepting them is a major part of building an official's confidence and motivation, integrating the official into the requirements of the game.

Officials can evaluate themselves by asking simple questions :

• Do I enjoy my role and responsibilities?
• Do I know what is expected of me in all situations?
• Am I still learning new things about officiating?
• Do my Instructors still motivate and stimulate me?
• Do I have to be at my best to maintain my status within the group?

If the officials can do this, they will feel fully engaged in their role and be motivated to meet new challenges and master them. When this is not happening, when practice is routine and unchallenging, the official may become stale, lose motivation and focus and make critical mistakes.

The responsibility of the Instructor/Mentor is to ensure mental clarity and emotional balance by preparing officials for their roles in empathetic, interesting and challenging ways.

Although both officials have a shared responsibility for decision-making, Instructors/Mentors must be able to teach special skills and responsibilities for critical situations. If the official knows that the Instructor/Mentor has a real understanding of his/her ability and potential, the official will be far more willing to accept criticism of performance. This will enhance the relationship between Instructor/Mentor and Official.

It is important that Instructors prepare profiles of individual officials, recognising their strengths and weaknesses, in order to prepare appropriate instruction and tasks. By doing this Instructor will be able to recognise potential mismatches when pairing officials and also when nominating to difficult games. Balancing experience and ability, whilst at the same time affording opportunity, is important for younger officials but equally important for experienced officials when they are expected to perform a supporting role before, during and after the game.