Much is often made about referee fitness, and rightly so. Fitness is a critical component to match control. While not always used, it must always be available in the event it is called on.
What is not often discussed is assessor fitness. A brief story to help illustrate ...
Over this beautiful Memorial Day weekend I had the opportunity to stop with one of my kids for an ice cream at a local establishment for such. While waiting for our order, I overheard (it was really not that hard as they were speaking VERY LOUDLY) a conversation about how poor the refereeing was at a local soccer match, in particular regarding offside decisions.
My first reaction was to look in the direction of the speaker, and when I did I almost immediately dismissed their comments. Why you ask? Because the speaker was about 300 pounds with ice cream dripping from the hand that was not holding the phone.
How could I take that opinion seriously? They certainly did not look like a referee, or act like a referee, or even seem knowledgeable in the game beside knowledge of the term "offside" which seemed to be in the correct context.
It got me thinking (as I was eating my cake batter ice cream with rainbow sprinkles) that how can a referee take an assessor seriously when they don't look or act the part? Now, granted I may be taking this example to an absurd extreme, but the message stands. It is important for referee and assessor alike to be knowledgeable, act, and look the part.
Now fitness for an assessor clearly need not be to the level of a referee, but to "sell" a message to a referee that much better, putting down the ice cream cone may not be a horrible idea. I know I'm going to.
Fitness for the assessor is much more in the realm of mental rather than physical fitness. The skills of assessing, observation, evaluation and feedback should be practiced as often as possible.
ReplyDeleteSo true, so true.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'll trade one indulgence in ice cream season for another to have a net loss.
ReplyDelete