Newcomer Michele Oty Shares Words of Wisdom, Upon Our Request
Michele Oty is a working mother of two young children. The oldest, daughter Mia, is playing U12 volleyball. She’s busy ferrying kids from one place to another. In addition, she is completing her first year as a volleyball official, and she is loving it. But a quick-glance volleyball checklist of things to do each season would help her stay organized and fulfill her obligations.
Retention has become a concern to the SAVRA Board of Directors as keeping officials from one year to the next has become increasingly more difficult. So how can we be better as an organization and individuals in doing the right things to help our new officials want to stay involved with us?
Oty believes a housekeeping checklist is a start. “I need that checklist to make sure I’m following up on everything . . .” Federation test completed, check. Packed ref bag with all the tools, check. Make a captains’ meeting list of things to cover, check. Copied the most recent list of SAVRA officials and their contact info, check.
She believes replacing some of the classroom training sessions with more on-court sessions would help, too. “Sometimes we need to see it to understand what our trainers are telling us.”
She invites those mid-level and advanced officials who choose not to attend high school or college training to come to basic training and serve as individual mentors, one-on-one with the newbies.
She applauds the mentor-partner program this past year. “I appreciated the seasoned officials working with us to make sure we learned to do things the right way. It would be nice to know all of our veteran officials were open to answering our questions and welcome that role as mentor.”
How welcoming fellow SAVRA members were to the new officials was one of the things that kept Oty interested in continuing to pursue her officiating goals with our organization.
“I remember I was really nervous for my first freshman jamboree,” Oty says. “When I got to middle school season and the game was slower, I got over the hump and realized I could do this. One of the biggest confidence builders was in the delivery of feedback by my mentors. It wasn’t ‘you do this and you do that, or you didn’t do this and you didn’t do that.’ It started with what I did good, and here are some things to work on. Very positive. Every time walking away from those debriefs I had a couple good things to work on. It takes time. We can’t be the number 1 official overnight.”
“I remember one match Ben (Goodwin) came to. Talking in the hall afterward, I asked, ‘When do I ever get over this nervousness.’ He said, ‘You didn’t look nervous up there to me.’”
As an association of individuals, we all must realize we’ve been in the shoes of the newbies. “The support of the association, and every member, is so important,” Oty says. “I remember Ben saying, 'There’ll come a time when you just put on your shoes, come out here and you won’t even think about it. It’s natural.'”
Not to be forgotten here, part of Michele’s success during her first year of officiating is her calm demeanor and sponge-like approach to gathering feedback and applying it.
Welcome back to season 2.
Recruitment and Retention Committee Formed
The Board of Directors has initiated a committee to assist with recruiting and retaining officials. Those committee members are Juli Jones, Brent Radford, Keith Ward, Sydney Spray, Lisa Paull and Heidi Wehr. If you have an idea on how SAVRA can better recruit and retain officials, please let a member of this committee know.
Communication Assessment Committee Seeks Your Input
How well are we communicating with our members? Or not? Melissa Woods, Keith Ward and Dale Goodwin have been selected to serve on a committee to assess how effective SAVRA communications are with its officials. Does this newsletter help keep you in the loop? Would Facebook, Instagram or Twitter give you what you needed? Are emails effective in communicating clinic dates, paycheck distribution schedules, issues before the association? Or not? What other means of communication would be effective? If you have ideas, or would like to serve on this committee, please contact a committee member.
SAVE THE DATE:
NCAA-PAVO Referees Clinic In Spokane Aug. 17
Gonzaga University and SAVRA again are hosting the national NCAA-PAVO referees clinic, Saturday, Aug. 17 in the Jundt Auditorium at Gonzaga. The clinic runs 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Online registration will be available soon after June 1, at www.pavo.org. This is a clinic worth its value to every official. Stayed tuned.
Evergreen Regionals Needs You
Evergreen Regionals are coming April 27-28 to Spokane, and ERVA Officials Director Linda Kildew could use every available official. If you have not made your Arbiter calendars available for these dates, please do so if at all possible.
One-on-One Mentoring for Aspiring or Current College Officials, April 13 and 20
Interested in upping your game, and receiving quality mentoring from SAVRA’s senior officials? SAVRA will be mentoring those officials who are newer or aspiring college officials this Saturday, April 13, 9 a.m.-noon at Gonzaga University’s Martin Centre, and at Spokane Falls Community College April 20 at 9 a.m. Pretty safe to say you won’t make the college game if you don’t avail yourself to quality opportunities to get a feel for the speed of the game at the next level, and receive personal mentoring from veteran college officials and line judges. If interested, please contact Alan Hirayama, ahirayama@hotmail.com.
NASO Summit Coming to Spokane July 28-30
This year's National Association of Sports Officials Summit is focused on Training in Transition. A great educational opportunity for anyone who trains officials or is seeking advanced training methods. WOA members receive a discount registration fee of $200. You'll receive exposure to national officials and experts in the art of officiating. For more information on the Summit, click https://www.sportsofficiatingsummit.com/about/about-the-summit/. To register, contact Alan Hirayama, at ahirayama@hotmail.com.
Do you have newsletter ideas? Please send them to Dale Goodwin, goodwin@gonzaga.edu.
