Life of a World Class Referee

By Tish Gorman

One aspect of competition at the World Class level that is rarely explored is the experience of a world-class referee.  As with each year at the World Championships, there are things that set them apart from other competitions.   One of these things is the officiating.  When you have really good officiating, you rarely hear about it; it goes almost unnoticed with the excitement of winning medals and crowning new world champions.   However, if the officiating is controversial, then it is the talk of the championships and the buzz on the web bulletin boards.  But, what happens inside the official’s camp during a world championship?  As with most years, the USA was represented at Worlds by a CIC certified referee.  In Italy this year, the USA’s referee was Tony Williams.  However, we also had two USA referees who paid their own way to Italy to become CIC certified:  Mike Bell and Jim Pitsch. 

When a referee wants to become certified at the World Class level, they must submit an application to be tested through their National Governing Body.  In our case, this is USARS.  Then, the CIC approves them to be tested and information is sent back so that they can plan to attend the World Championships at their own expense.   There are two components to becoming certified – the written test and the practical application of the rules.   Referees attend the World Championships and take the written portion of the test within the first few days of arriving.   They are then teamed with a CIC official and the written test is gone over and discussed.   This is done because some of the answers you may give on the test may be judgmental and the CIC officials will determine what your thinking process was when you were answering the question.  Sometimes, it can be a matter of a language barrier – misunderstanding what the question was asking for – and other times, it could be that several answers are correct, depending on which rule the referee was applying.

The next portion of the test is probably the hardest.  Each “testing referee” is teamed with a mentor and shadows the mentor referee throughout most of the championships.  They ask the mentor questions and verify calls that they make with the mentor.  Sometimes this can be challenging, as the referee assigned to be your mentor may not have a great command of the language with which you are most comfortable.  The referees at Worlds do not use radios to communicate, probably because of the language barriers in having so many referees from all parts of the world.  So, when you have a call, you must run your call across the track to the assistant chief referee or the Chief referee.  At the World Championships in Italy, there were no special setups for the referees or the athletes on the track on the road.   This means that there were no tents to protect them from the sun or rain.  They stand out in the elements for many hours each day.  This is a lot to go through just to earn your credentials and you have to pay for the privilege as well, since testing officials are not reimbursed at all.

So, how did it go with Mike and Jim in Italy?  I caught up with them in the hotel near the end of the championships and asked them some questions.  Their responses are outlined below.

Q:  Tell me what it is like taking the Officials test at Worlds?

Jim:  “I was so nervous that my hands were shaking during the written part.  But after the written part you have to go in and talk to the testers to make sure that you understood all the questions.”

Mike:  “We studied and studied the book, and they had questions on the test that weren’t in the book.  The translation of the written part, which was originally written in Italian, is not very well translated into English, so there is room for misunderstanding.”

Jim:  “So, some of the questions on the written part that we had problems with, we were allowed to review with the English testing official from CIC.  This happened to be Charlie Wallig for us and we were able to go over with Charlie the parts that weren’t clear.

Q:  What was the most stressful part of taking the test?

Mike:  We show up to take the test -- which is a pretty formal process by the way -- and then they give us the closed book test and we don’t get a reference point or anything. The committee is looking at the rulebook when they are asking the questions, but we don’t get to look at the rulebook to answer the question.  

“At home, we know as referees that we can always go and look at the rule book to make sure that the recollection of the exact wording of the rule is correct before we make the final decision to make sure that we’ve made the right decision.” 

Q:  What is the biggest difference for you as a referee about the World Championships versus Outdoor Nationals?

Mike:  “The biggest challenge is that we have always used indoor rules at outdoor nationals until this past year when we used the CIC rules.  But, the referees have only one opportunity a year to get the experience that it takes to judge this type of meet.  So coming to Worlds helps so that we can take this type of experience out to Colorado.

“What is amazing is that we asked some of the referees at worlds how long they have refereed at the domestic level (which would be the same as at our National level) and some of them will say four years and then they took their test and then ref’d at the international level for three or four more years.  Jim and I have been referees for 18 and 20 years respectively. 

“So most of the guys that take the test for the USA come in with 15 plus years of experience.  Granted, its indoor experience, but still officiating in our sport.”

Q:  How many officials in the USA currently hold CIC certification? 

Both:  “Actively – we have eight officials, counting us – when we get our credentials.  Tony Williams, Janine Cobb, Jeff Kujawa, Kathy Rex, Dan Whittaker, Troy Blystra, Mike and I.”

Oh, and we also have referees who are retired at the world class level:  Larry Pep is considered inactive for world meets because the CIC has a mandatory retirement age for its officials.”

Q:  What was the most eye-opening thing about Worlds – being on the inside of things?

Jim:  “Politics   -- Well, that’s a little bit broad.  We have politics all over, right?  We even have politics in our regions.  At worlds, it’s harder because you have the language barriers and then you have the officials from every country talking to you, and then you have the CIC officials.  It’s much harder to get a call made.”

Mike:  “In the US, the refereeing is as equal as is possible, I mean, there’s no favoritism among the refs for a particular team.   For example, the Chief Referee at Outdoor Nationals will go to the referee that made a call and say “what do you have” and we’ll agree with if 5 people say this is what I saw, that call WOULD be made. 

“The thing we don’t see at Outdoor Nationals is the large number of skaters with pretty much the same level of experience on how they skate on the track.  For example, Joey [Mantia] could take off pretty much whenever he wanted at Outdoor Nationals and its pretty much a no contest.  But at Worlds, you could never get away.  Here, everyone skates in very close proximity at the same skill level.  So now comes into play the line they are skating or falls and bumping to distinguish the skating.

“Another example is a couple of instances where a skater has a line and the skater on the outside is trying to come inside.  In the USA we pretty much have never seen that as it happens at the world level.  At home we would say “Call it for pushing”  But here at worlds the skater is just on his line and keeping the skater from pushing him into the inside of the track.  It really helps to see this at Worlds, because it helps us see it at Outdoor Nationals too, when it might not be as obvious.”

Q:  So at worlds, you get to see some of the pushing and shoving that goes on and is allowed here.  We tell our athletes what its like, but you don’t get to experience it at home?

Jim:  “Yes, at home we tell someone to “skate clean” and then they come here and see the conditions.  Maybe we need to let them experience something of what it would be like skating at the World level when we are at home so that they aren’t so surprised when they get here.”

Q:  What else is different in the officiating?

Mike:  “In the US, we are a little more advanced in how we run a meet with the officials.  For example, at home, we use headsets, so we are able to say “Skater X – issue a warning.”  Here at Worlds, you have the situation where someone is on their post and they see something, so they have to run over and get to the assistant chief or the Chief to report a warning for a skater.  Well, now they’ve left an open slot, where someone is no longer watching.” 

Jim:  “But, I don’t think the headsets here at Worlds would help a whole lot because of the language barrier, so I don’t know what a solution might be”

Mike:  “The thing that creates the most anxiety is:  #1 is the language barrier and #2 is the coordination with the countries.  For example, information is sent to the US for us to know and it doesn’t get to us.  Basic stuff like where to go for our test when we got here was not part of the information we were given.”

Jim:  “Yes, we didn’t even find out until two weeks ago where we were staying here in Italy.  It’s hard to make plans when you’re not sure where you are going to be.” 

Q:  Going back to the testing process, do you think we ought to change the test in the USA for referees to not be open book so that it mirrors the CIC test more?

Mike:  “No.  I think we need to change it to where there is more experience required to receive full certification as a referee.  I think it’s real easy for someone to go in and take a test and be really smart on the rulebook inside and out but then not have the experience judging the races.  What you get there is a referee that is all black and white in their application of the rules and they don’t look at the whole situation that occurs.  This is definitely not the way they handle it at worlds.”

Q:  But don’t we have a shortage of referees, so we need to certify them faster? 

Mike:  “Well, the numbers of referees are shrinking because you can be treated better at the invitational level than you can be at the regional level, and you are often treated better at the regional level than you are at the national level.”

“Right now, we are at Nationals at 6:30 am to 6:30 pm, get an hour off for dinner and then go until 11 at night and then turn around and come back in the morning and do it again.  So, some of your best referees won’t come in and do nationals because it is too hard and requires such long hours.

Jim:  “Also, after JO then you have to do Standard Nationals and now they are adding quad nationals right after that.  It’s a lot of hard work and not really appreciated.”