Kelly Bates
CFL.ca
Officials. Does anybody really like or appreciate them?
Let’s face it. Officials may have the least envious job in the business of sport. We expect them to be absolutely perfect in our eyes. They have zero finagling capacity when it comes to making a call on a play that has just occurred at maximum speed within one aspect of the game they are a part of.
Yes, officials are a part of the overall game. They may not be battling it out to see who wins on the scoreboard; nevertheless they are still heavily involved in the game itself.
So let’s sum this up. Refs are expected to never be wrong. Well… OK… I can understand this mentality. I can understand why people would want this. I certainly know that every referee wishes they could make this occur. As a player, I certainly wish I never made mistakes on the field of play. It is here within this thought process that the expectations that are placed on officials become unattainable within the current system.
I will first create an analogy using CFL players as a basis point. We are professionally paid athletes that make a comfortable living on what we are paid. What we are paid allows us to make a conscious decision to make a complete dedication to the business we are in. Essentially, our salary allows us to make football our full time job. We are expected to perform at the highest of levels on a consistent basis, or we can expect to lose our jobs, and thus, our source of income. Therefore, the pay fits the expectations.
Now let’s look at officials. They referee a professional sport where participant jobs are on the line weekly. As well, they are under constant scrutiny in regards to the performance of their jobs and face disciplinary action if they do not perform up to their job requirements. I know what most of you cynics out there are thinking right now, but wait as there is more.
What would these officials do if they lost their employment with the CFL? Well it certainly would not cost them an abundant source of their income. Obviously this is not a large enough income to live on or support a family on. Are bells going off yet??? Ding Ding.
That’s right. Referees are not full time paid employees. In reality, they are not half time paid employees as they only work and get paid six months out of the year. This means that most referees, unless they are of retirement age, have a fulltime 9-5, five day work week job. That means they are working a full work week and jetting away to their required destination of the week to ref a professional football game in their spare time.
So let’s recap, yet again. Professional football players are paid a full time salary to practice their skill set all week long, thus getting better through constant repetition, making and learning from mistakes during the week, and then attempting to perform on game night to the best of their abilities with maximum preparation under our belts gained throughout the week. Referees are paid a modest fee with little to no weekly on field practice preparation, meanwhile being expected to have similar results to those of the players in terms of their game performance.
Now I know what you are thinking. These referees have made a conscious decision to go into this line of work. Therefore they should strive to be the best they can be at all times. I would argue that they do. I am sure, that just like players, they take the same pride in the job they do and strive to be perfect game in and game out.
The difference is this. We, as players, are put in a situation to have a greater level of success week in and week out with the amount of time we are able to dedicate to football as it is what we do for a living. Referees, however, are not put in the same situation to have the same kind of successes at the level of performance that we do as they are not afforded the opportunity to prepare as the players do. Yet, the same level of performance is expected of referees. But you will never see a referee who does not take pride in what he does and does not commit as much time as is possible within the world they function in to be good at what they do. Nobody wants to look like they do not know what they are doing, especially on national television.
So how do you bring more stability to refereeing in general?
You do what the CFL and the CFLPA are doing at the present moment. You work together to create an environment in which officials can strive to be as good as they can. This means working towards creating head referee positions that are fully paid, thus allowing them the time to dedicate towards their paid profession. Then you work on filtering the pay down the line to all game officials. This will give officials incentive to actually want to become officials. This step may be a ways down the road yet, but I believe it will eventually occur.
The CFLPA and CFL are also working together to upgrade the overall system that develops and creates growth within the refereeing ranks. I believe in the next few years we will see a drastic improvement in the overall environment of refereeing that will allow officials the ability to hone their skills at an even higher level.
Kelly Bates has been a regular starter along the BC Lions’ offensive line since 2003. He was a 2007 CFL All-Star and played his 100th career game in Week 3.
