2019 is here and for 300 + more days – it’s here to stay. The new year wrests away your connection last, with a focus on things you can improve upon and new habits to take on. In terms of officiating, we all have goals. It may be to tack on another sport; it may be to elevate in an existing sport you already service. Here’s mine:
- Master mechanics/signals with an emphasis on my left hand being dominant, with my right hand being the secondary hand. This goes hand in hand with one of my resolutions for 2019 – I want to master being left-handed (writing, brushing teeth, cutting food, everything) so when I have an out call in baseball or am calling a foul in Basketball and my fist is up in the air, best believe it’ll be in my left arm. Most of these calls are instinctual; so I’ll have to be cognizant of when I put air in the whistle – ALL. THE. TIME.
“Work like a slave to become a master.” – Big Daddy Kane
- Master fitness with Yoga & Jump Rope and Keeping
fit outside of officiating. Another one of my perennial goals of becoming more fit, eating healthy, acting healthy. I want to use these low impact exercises, Yoga and Jump Rope, to achieve my goals. Specifically, I’m just trying to touch my toes, then hopefully be able to hold some of those fancy poses thatyogi’s can hold for more than 40 seconds. With respect to jump rope, I found out the glory of it by accident. It was late May and I was aimlessly shuffling videos on YouTube. I am a former marathon runner, and hypertrophy chaser in the gym. Jump Rope is stationary, quick, and burns fat when not working out. Progress soon come in future posts.
- Service at least 700 games àhowever still pick and choose quality assignments >
low quality assignments. I haven’t officially counted the assignments I’ve taken over the years, but this year I’d like to diligently count, and record the happenings of what I learned for each and every game. But still, I’d like to have an emphasisof the quality games, even if it means trading 3 ok games for 1 great game.
- Level up in umpiring Baseball. I already have a handicap and new withstanding rule that I most likely will never be doing summer ball. That hinders my development without the repetition that I get from Basketball. However, all the Baseball games that I do for school circuit, I would like to dig in the
rulebook, and see more plays to become the best baseball umpire behind the dish that I can be.
Levelup in officiating Lacrosse. Unfortunately, out of all sports, I have disrespected the game of Lax – I have nurtured everything I have done, except for Lacrosse for a slew of reasons –one I have no feel or command in what I’m doing compared to the other sports I service,I don’t get the right amount of reps officiating it, and I never open the rulebook. That all changes in 2019.
- Use refereerant.com as a resource for the community of officials, from beginners to experts. I plan on pouring my heart and soul to this website. To make it a very useful tool for everyone to elevate in the art of officiating. I hope that we build a strong community where other people are contributing to show that the third team matters on the court and field as well.
- Have a good showing during Basketball camp seasons. I will be entering my 3rd year of attending Basketball camps, with the hope of showcasing my improvement and ability to hopefully get picked up for new high school and college assignors. This will be a good gauge of how much growth I’ve had in 2018.
“Give me 6 hours to
What are your goals? Feel free to share them:
Email: reffingrants@gmail.com
IG: RefereeRant
Twitter: @referee_rant
