Judging statement:

 The score for a dive should accurately reflect the performance of a dive, and all divers should be judged by the same criteria.

Items for discussion: (Includes video)

•   -- Know the rules and apply them.
•   -- Assess penalties.
•   -- Who assesses penalties?
•    --Judge
•    --Referee

Judging:

•   -- Set a standard for your judging and maintain that standard for every diver.
•   -- Recognize and understand by sight.
•   --Failed dives
•   --Form breaks
•   --Complete
•   --Partial
•   --Twisting
•   --Over
•   --Under
•   --When is a twist failed?
•   --What is free position?
•   --Which twisting dives can be tuck?
•   --Which twisting dives can not be tuck?
•   --Ruling .... Fwd 1 1/2ss 1 twist.
•   --Poor boardwork and take off.
•   --Finishing height of the dive.
•   --The position of the dive.

 Scores: Understand the following ranges


 
•   --Range for Failed dive?
•   --Range for unsatisfactory dives?
•   --Range for satisfactory dives?
•   --Range for good dives?
•   --Range for excellent dives?
•   --Range for outstanding dives?


 Criteria for scores: (This is just another way of dividing points for scoring a dive. Use with charts in “ Most Common Errors Seen in Dives”.)

1.   --Boardwork   2pts.
2.   --Height
•   --Initial    2 pts
•   --Finishing
3.   --Flight /Grace   2pts
4.   --Form    2pts
5.   --Entry    2pts


See document “A New Judging Angle” by Wayne Oras for more Judging Criteria.
 

     Suggestions:

•  --Do not let outside influences affect the score you give.
•  --Coaches that try to intimidate officials.
•  --The crowd watching the contest.
•  --The level that you are being asked to judge.
•  --Friendships that may have been developed over the years.
•  --Being afraid that you won’t get a good evaluation.
•  --Once you have set your standard, keep all of the divers on it. Don’t change the standard
•     in the middle of a contest for any reason.
•  --Do not even give a hint that you are looking at anyone else’s score before you show yours.
•  --Judge what you see, not what you hope to see or have seen the diver do in the past.
•  --Keep your score within the ranges described above.
•  --Give a bad score to a bad dive and a good one to a good dive.
•  --As a member of a judging panel, you are being asked for your opinion of the dive. Give it!
•  --Everyone makes mistakes, but no one makes the same mistake all the time.
•  --If you are weak at seeing form breaks, work on that before you get on any panel. The
•    same holds true for hitting the board, over/under-twisting etc.
•  --If you are unsure of what you are doing, don’t judge. You will only feel more intimidated.
•  --You don’t have to be a coach to be a good judge.

---


 



FOR THE RECORD?

As I approach the age of retirement, I have been able to reflect on all of the successes and failures I have been privileged to be a part of over the years. This has been for 40+ years to this point, both as a coach and a diver. What I am seeing as far as our judging goes, just doesn't sit right with me. What follows is an explanation of why I feel the way I do about this topic.


 I can remember an era where Illinois Diving was very strong. When I started coaching in the high schools, diving was like it is right now. There were one or two divers that were really good. After  which came a few who were OK and then another batch that were so so and so on. After a few years,  High School diving got so competitive that any one of the top twenty could have won the State Championship,  if they were on that day.  Divers were,  on average,  doing harder dives than the ones we are seeing today,  and not just the first or second place divers. The top 15 to 20 had these dives and were doing them rather well. The equipment they dove from was the best of its kind, but not as good as it is today.


 At that time, I needed to know that I knew what I was doing as a diving judge. I took the National Judges Certification exam and passed it to be able to judge up to the National level. I don't refer to this instance to say that I am better than anyone else. Rather I mention it because I wanted to know that I knew what I was doing for the sake of the divers. I wanted to know how to separate good dives from the bad ones and be objective in my own judging. Judging in my mind was always too subjective. I was looking for something that was more objective. I needed this because at that time, I was coaching kids from multiple schools and didn’t want to be accused of favoring one diver over another. I didn’t want to loose my own credibility with these kids, especially when they competed against each other. Officials would ask, which school are you pulling for?  My answer was both/all of them. They couldn’t understand my disaffiliation. I still hold myself to that standard. I must admit that it has been tempting to go along with the crowd,  but I don’t feel that it’s the right thing to do. It doesn’t set a good example for the divers and I have to live with what I do.


 As a judge, coaches would be on panels through the summer, high school seasons including Invitationals, such as the Hinsdale Invite. Judging was good and consistent then. These coaches even judged the Sectionals using the same standards set at the above meets. It was consistent until the State Meet. At that time the officials took over and the crowd was able to influence the scores they gave. That is why we have the current judging panel system in place at the State Meet. Some of the same things go on now,  except the standard changes at Sectionals. Coaches change the standard that was set all season. Scores become very generous to assure certain divers make it to State. Early in my coaching career  I accused the officials of incompetence. I don't think that many of them forgave me for that to this day. Since the insertion of the present panel system,  things have changed.  I have accused my fellow coaches of inflating the scores at Sectionals and nothing has changed in the last 12 years. Inflated scoring still happens and no one seems willing to make a change.



 Many school records were set in that early era, that are being broken now. The concern I have is that the diver owning the new record is not as good as the original record holder. By this I mean, the record stood by a diver  who did all optionals pike plus a Forward 1 1/2 ss with 2 twist and a back 1 1/2 ss with 1 1/2 twists or Reverse 1 1/2 ss with 1 1/2 twists. We even saw some back and reverse 2 1/2 ss. Does harder mean better? No! But they did these harder dives better than the kids now are doing the easier dives. This has been the basis of my opinion all along. If the degree of difficulty many divers use is less now, then how can the scores divers get be as high or higher than before? That’s what drives me crazy and it’s the result of inflated scoring. This is why I spent some time formulating  “A new Judging Angle”. I found a way to make my judging less subjective. It also seemed to help the officials and newer coaches with  some of the judging criteria not spelled out in the rule book
.
 All of my arguments to this point have been based on past performances. Those divers were and remain my  bench mark,  the basis for my point of view. They are the ones who set my standard for judging. Some of them are now members of  the coaching ranks and are just as frustrated and upset as I am,  but they don’t want to rock the boat for fear that their divers will not be scored properly. Since that appears to be happening,  I have made the decision that I don’t want to be a part of judging the Sectional series. I am now only on one of those panels if there are no other judges. If I am going to make the effort to be fair and accurate in judging, that effort is wasted when my  score never counts. If it’s not going to count,  why waste the effort?


 I once had a diver who was doing all the above mentioned dives back in the mid to late seventies. I was embarrassed and upset when he received a 300 score for six dives. He dove well, but not that good. Later that same season,  he was selected as a  NISCA All America. Recently,  we had a young lady score 300 points in a dual meet. She was undoubtedly one of the best to come out of Illinois in a number of years. However, she didn't have the D.D. of the above mentioned  boy  who got the same score. To get 300 points in a dual meet, you need to score 50 points per dive, understanding that one of them was the required dive for that meet. At that pace,  this girl should have scored 550 points in an 11 dive contest. She barely scored 400 points in an 11 dive meet that following weekend. That means she could only  score 20 points per dive on her last five dives. Judging was the reason for this difference. Apparently,  the judging scale for the weekend meet was more in line than the dual meet scores. She also barely scored 400 points when she eventually won the State Meet in her senior year.


 For at least the last twelve years, the last place qualifying score to the State Meet, placed in the finals of that meet. To clarify,  I am talking about the score,  not the last place qualifier. Many  times it was one of the top six scores. Fifteen scores or more entered the State Meet well over 400 points.  In those State Contests, especially in recent years, not even the State Champion scored over 400 points. What this means to me is that we are over-generous with our Sectional scoring. If only one of those divers bombed in the meet,  I wouldn’t be writing this article. Unfortunately, it appears that all of them bombed, according to their scores.  Our Sectional judging panels are responsible for this fluctuation. What seems to be happening is that the judges get more lenient at Sectionals with both scores and penalty assessments. Dives are receiving 8 1/2 or  9 that should be scored 6 1/2 or 7. Coaches are rationalizing penalty assessments and not making some deductions unless they are instructed to do so by the Referee. They are not acting independently or responsibly when they do that.


 A full twisting 1 1/2 somersault is listed as a complete break in position, if the diver tucks during it. Coaches are rationalizing a partial break because the bend at the knees is not that bad. If the diver is already bent at the waist, any amount of bend at the knees is considered a tuck by its own definition. The score should be no more than 2.


 The statement that the State Meet is really for the top 20 divers is not realistic. 47 divers qualify to the State Meet, “Which 20 are we talking about?” When Sectional scoring varies as much as it has from  Sectional to Sectional,  divers who deserve to be at the State Meet may be left out and sometimes are. The highlight of a season is to make it to the State Meet but not when obvious unfairness occurs. Over the years, many divers stayed home because of this wild judging. In a few instances, the best diver in a Sectional didn’t win. Some of them still made it to the State Meet and did rather well. Some say, “Well, it all came out in the wash anyhow”. But did it? This boy still didn’t have the gold medal he deserved from Sectionals. The scoring kept him within reach of a lesser diver that received highly inflated scores for most of his dives. One slightly missed dive cost him the gold. That should have never happened, but it did. It was the result of bad judging.



 If you are a diver, doing your dives for an entire season or over three or four years,  year round,  your scores will not fluctuate very much. Divers develop a certain amount of consistency which is one of the results of  practice. After talking with a number of former divers, it seems that your best diving would be 10 to 15 points higher than your average and your not so good days would be about the same below your average, barring a fail a dive or blowing it completely. This is only a 30 point shift from a good day to a bad day. It's ludicrous to see scores that fluctuate a 100 points and more from one week to the next. Our  present divers may not be as good as they  were years ago, but they are not as bad as our judging shows.


 “Well,  it’s Sectionals and you’ve got to play the game.” Sectionals are not a game. They are one qualifying meet that happens at 15 different locations throughout the State. When  judging can affect the outcome of a meet,  it behooves us to make sure that our judging accurately reflects each diver's performance. If it does not, then the divers are not the ones competing and the right divers don’t always qualify. The divers are the reason for the competition and we, as judges, have no right to take their chance to compete away from them. As coaches we must realize that we had our chance to compete. Now it is our diver’s turn to have that same equal opportunity.
Back To Current Topics