What an amazing experience! Hands down the funnest meet I have ever participated in. First, a huge shout out to all of the individuals involved in planning and organizing this meet. The host team did an AMAZING job. I hope they will have an opportunity to host this meet again. It was such a pleasure to officiate.
What a great team of officials. I met officials from Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Montana... and I'm probably going to forget some of the states that some individuals came from. All the nicest group of people. I had the pleasure of working as a starter during Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday prelims. My first day's deck ref (DR) was our local national evaluator. He's very serious and is not a man of a lot of words so it's taken me a while to get as comfortable around him as I'd like to be. What I love about him is his love for the sport. He's worked national decks and officiated for some of our Olympic athletes. He knows his swimming and I know if I have questions I can always go to him for answers. After one of our conversations, I realized he really wants us to do our best and to enjoy and love what we do. My second and third days I was paired with another very experienced DR from Colorado. She was amazing. She was so great to work with. She gave me scenarios to ponder and think of solutions. She shared a lot of knowledge with me. I learned so much.
I worked the even end of the pool during prelims and there were three teams of us on Friday and Saturday. The other team was one of our local deck ref/starters and another gentleman who is 91 years old from the Central Valley. What a sweet heart. He was a starter and I have to say I loved the sound of his voice when he invited with swimmers with "take your mark." He has been around the pool deck for over 30 years. I didn't get the opportunity to speak with him about his officiating career as I had hoped, but I did get a chance to observe him doing what he does. He's been officiating zone meets for more than fifteen years. The other starter I enjoyed observing was an amazing starter and had a wonderful voice. It was great to observe and listen to the calm inviting tone of his voice. The biggest thing I noticed about the other starters is their consistency of tone. How each paced themselves based on their eight or nine swimmers in their group. Some groups of swimmers set themselves faster than others some do not. Each group is different and requires a different pace. I loved seeing how the two of them paced their starts.
I was only needed as a starter during prelims so I had the option of taking the rest of the day off or coming back for finals. My daughter was having such a great time volunteering that she was not having any of the going home after prelims business she was there to work and have fun. So I checked with one of the chief judge (CJ) to see if they needed any help. I knew the meet could use additional help so if they didn't need an official I'd volunteer in another capacity for the host team. Turns out they needed stroke and turn (ST). So I worked Friday and Saturday finals as an ST. That was fun. It gave me the opportunity to get to know many of the other officials and hear about their swimming experiences and where they are from. I just can't say enough great things about the individuals I worked with.
I learned many things this weekend, not only about officiating, but about myself. One of the best lessons I heard was from our oldest official "you do not DQ a swimmer, a swimmer DQ's themselves" we should never feel as though their DQ was our responsibly. I loved that perspective since there are times when I feel badly about writing those slips, but I know that doing so at an LSC level helps prevent it from happening at a higher caliber meet. I also learned that I am a good starter, but that if I work at it and continue to work different level meets and with experienced individuals I could possibly be a great starter. That was a great compliment and I felt very humbled to hear it. I owe a huge thank you to two encouraging fellow officials, one in particular, that gave me the encouragement to move forward as a starter and I appreciate it so much.
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| The Officials The white shirts in the morning sun did not make for a great photo. |
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