An Observation of Change in Coaching and Judging.
Since this was my last High School season, I would like to relay some observations of coaching and judging I have seen over the years. Do not misunderstand. My observations do not apply to all of our present high school coaches but there are many to which it does. Again I do not claim to be an expert in these areas but longevity does afford me a reasonable insight.
Background
I
had a relatively successful high school and collegiate diving career. I was a
good diver but not a great one by any means. For many of those years, I didn’t
even have a coach. When I began my high school coaching career, I thought I
knew it all because of the success I had with various age group programs. I
would like to thank Bob Shneider (Yale) for his donation to the Northbrook YMCA
and for comments that made me question what I was doing. After working with
high school kids for a few years, I began to doubt my capabilities because I
wasn’t getting the results I had expected. Attending many clinics gave
assurance that I did know what I was doing and was headed in the right
direction. The clinicians over those many years were well recognized coaches
such as Hobie Billingsley (Indiana), Ron O’Brien (Ohio State), Dick Kimball
(Michigan), Jerry Darda (Wisconsin), John Narcy (Michigan State) and John
Walker (Harvard) to name a few. I thought that when in doubt you go to the
experts, so I did.
I
also needed to know if I was a fair judge because I began coaching more than
one high school during the same season and didn’t want to be accused of bias by
the way I judged. If that ever happened, I knew I would lose my credibility
with every diver in the program. That’s when I enrolled in a National Diving
Judging certification clinic. Again well-known coaches such as some of the
above were the clinicians with the addition of a person (Wirt Norris) who, at
the time, was the United States representative on the Olympic judging panel. As
a result of that effort, I became the only Illinois coach to pass that test
along with a handful of others that could judge diving at any level except
International contests, like the Olympics. To judge internationally you could
not be an active coach or be affiliated with any diving program. I believe
that’s still the case now.
All
of this seems like bragging but the point is that as the end of my coaching
career came closer, it seemed like many coaches were bastardizing the sport of
diving. At one point in time most coaches knew what the proper techniques and mechanics
were when teaching divers how to do dives and judging their performances. All
of those coaches were giving almost identical scores whether they sat on the
same or separate panels. It carried over even when they were at different
sites. The standard was set and remained constant regardless of where they were.
Recently when I stood on the deck waiting for my divers to perform, coaches
were critiquing their diver’s and I was amazed at what they said. Frequently
the critique didn’t match the dive I just saw.
Many
dives came into existence emphasizing a certain technique or mechanic that made
the performance successful. Since that time, many other dives were added and
there were a couple of acceptable ways of performing them. In order to judge
these dives, you have to be familiar with the differences in those techniques.
Our newer coaches don't seem to understand those differences and have blended many of the mechanics and techniques
together. Effectively that blend lowers the caliber of those dives and makes
them easier to perform, which is not how the degree of difficulty was
established for those dives.
Also
an egotistical attitude has surfaced. Everyone wants to see his/her diver make
it to the State Meet. The question becomes, “How realistic is that diver’s
chance?” To many it doesn’t matter as long as they make it there. Since these
coaches have changed the way dives are being performed, their standard for
judging has changed. Dives that under/over twist and ones that go over/short
are scored close to those dives that are mechanically and technically correct.
Dives that had complete or partial breaks were scored as if it didn’t happen at
all. All one has to do is observe the
many twisting dives where the last quarter twist is finishing in the pike position
or divers who bend the knees at the end of some of these dives. By no means are
either technically or mechanically correct. If one looks at the scores for that
dive, there is little difference between a technically correct dive and that
one. There are other examples too numerous to include in a short article such
as this. Mechanically correct dives are not outscoring dives that have
mechanical deficiencies. Scoring has become more lenient for the not so good
dive and tougher for a mechanically superior dive. Many of the things being
discussed here are part of the rules, which are not being used to help separate
the good from bad dives.
Some
coaches have stated that they raise the standard for judging when it comes to
Sectionals. I never did understand how you could raise a standard when there
seems to be no basic standard for a dive to be mechanically or technically
correct to begin with. When people mess with a standard many questions arise.
Did the Sectional winner really win? Did the order of finish match the actual
performances? Who didn’t qualify because the standards were not the same in all
Sectionals?
I
was talking with another coach at a Sectional site this year about the rule for
excessive rocking. At that point a nearby coach overheard the discussion and
asked if that was a rule and was it in the rulebook? That coach was not new to
the sport and had been coaching for a few years. It demonstrates that some are
not even reading Rule 9. It’s not very long or complicated but how can any
coach not be up on the rules that govern the competition? Because of this I
believe that there are times some of our coaches wait to see if the referee
will make a call. If the referee doesn’t and there is an infraction, these
coaches don’t enforce the rule for the infraction, which is the job of a judge
whether or not the official makes the call. At this time, by rule the referee
will only call a balk, a dive done in the wrong position, a failed dive or
hitting the board.
Some
coaches make value judgments while sitting on a panel. These judgments relate
to the dives some competitors use. These are coaches who don’t like certain
dives or consider them to be too easy for some divers to be using. It is not
something they should be doing during competition. It is not a judge’s job to
make these judgments. Divers are allowed to use any dive on the rulebook table.
Judges must score the performance of that dive whether they like the use of a particular dive
or not. A coach may tell his/her own diver not to use a particular dive. They
however have no right to do that to any other diver in a contest. They must
judge the performance of a dive selected by the diver and not the biases they
hold for any particular dive.
I
become infuriated when a coach becomes wonderfully blind to the mistakes
his/her own diver makes. This coach only seems to enforce the rules on
everybody else’s diver. They may even score higher than most when their own
diver does something “better than they have ever done before”. It is unfair to
the rest of the competitors when a judge does that. No one else on that panel
knows that it was the diver’s best performance. Individual comparative scoring
is not acceptable when judging a competitive event. Past performances may not
be used as a basis for scoring present performances.
It’s
bothersome to put a lot of effort into giving an honest evaluation of dives and
enforce the basic rules of competition when my score often times gets thrown
out. I wouldn’t mind so much but my score may have been the only correct one
for that dive. It truly amazes me that at the beginning of my career my scores
were well in line with the best coaches in the world. Now at the end of my
career, my scores often count for nothing. All I know is that something changed
and it wasn’t me. Maybe the laws of physics changed somewhere along the line
that I’m not aware of.
I
believe that a current group of coaches are taking the competition away from
the divers and placing it in the judge’s hands by bending or ignoring the rules
for judging. This appears to be the reason for the high scores we see at qualifying
time. It also may be the reason behind a statement I’ve heard many times, “I
have to be on the judging panel to protect my kids”. A question arises, who is
protecting all the other kids in that competition from this coach? Who is this
program for anyway? I always thought competition was for the athletes but
apparently I was wrong. The whole purpose of serving as a judge is to ensure
fairness, enforce the rules and use good judgment and/or be unbiased when
evaluating dives.
I
have been called a purist and have been told that I judge too harshly. No
matter what I am called, at the end of the day I have to live with myself.
Those criticisms lead me to believe that I have accomplished the goals I
originally set for myself. That goal was to treat all divers fairly, in an
unbiased fashion and enforce all applicable rules. The only one of those goals
I still struggle with is being unbiased. Biased in this respect refers to the
way I like to teach kids various dives. I have to constantly remind myself that
there are other ways of completing a successful dive and my way is not the only
way. Imagine a judging panel of 3, 5 or 7 different my ways and the confusion
that would go with it.
Judges
should utilize the entire range of scoring when possible. In the last State
Meet my scores ranged from a low of 2 ½ to a high of nine. Others on the same
panel had a smaller range from 4 to 6 ½. My attitude has always been, show me a
good dive and I’ll give you a good score. There have been many dives where I
was disappointed when I had to give a low score because of a rule infraction.
Those dives started out looking wonderful and then something bad happened such
as twisting when it wasn’t supposed to or a partial break in position that
occurred in the middle or at the end of a dive. I seem to be the only one that
notices these things and is willing to enforce the rules.
The
major point of this article has been to bring attention to the fact that poor judging
will have an effect on the outcome of a contest. A good diver will not receive the
scores he/she deserves while a not so good diver will be given higher scores
than they deserve which keeps them closer to the better diver than they should
be. It’s like saying that there is no difference between hamburger and steak.
This idea pertains not only to the winner of an event but all the way down the
finishing order.
Other
articles on this web site that pertain to this topic are listed below.
·
Should There Be Any Rules?2/28/2006
·
Difficulties deciding on a Score 12/25/2005
·
How Free Is Free? 2/25/04