Another Judging Fiasco by High School Coaches
The opinions below are written not to cast aspersions on any one individual. Rather they are here to demonstrate a growing trend of how some judges manipulate the rules that can change the outcome of a contest. Some judging mistakes are usually made unintentially but some appear to be blatant as described below.
The basic premise for athletics is to offer the ability to compete, which includes some sense of "fairness during competition". Many sports have an objective standard such as timed events, out-distancing opponents and etc. Officials are used to insure that athletes have a level playing field to compete with other athletes. Sometimes these officials can determine the outcome of a contest by making a bad call.
Sports like diving, gymnastics, figure skating and the like are more subjective in nature and rely on judges to determine the outcome of contests. There are however certain basic parameters these judges must follow in order to ensure that fairness to each competitor. Those parameters are contained in the rules for judging. The rules layout certain guidelines complete with penalties or deductions for various infractions. When judges are ignorant of the rules, choose to only follow some of those rules or decide to minimize the severity of an infraction, they are taking the competition away from the athletes. Here is a most recent example to demonstrate what affect questionable judging does to the athlete.
At a recent Conference meet (2006) the actual Conference Diving champion finished second because of poor judging. Poor judging refers to judges that ignore the rules that govern an event. The performances during this contest were average at best and included just a handful of good dives. For this argument only a form break will be discussed. This form break occurred on two different dives by the same diver. The dives were performed in the pike position. A break in form according to the rulebook has two classifications, complete and partial and defines a range of scores a judge may give. A partial break refers to any visual knee bend that occurs during a pike dive. A complete break can be determined by the degree of knee bend, which may make it look like tuck rather than pike (it would be more like a dive performed in the wrong position). A complete break would score ½ to 2 points while a partial break would score 2 ½ to 4 points.
The rules leave no room to infer that a form break "wasn’t all that bad therefore a higher score can be given". If there is a slight break at the knees, it automatically falls into the deficient range for a partial break in position, which sets a limit for the judges’ score.
After the contest was over, I told the winning diver that he bent his knees, thus the reason for the 4 on his two dives. He said he knew that since his coach had been calling his attention to it for most of the season. His coach was a member of the judging panel, and that raises a question, "why did he score higher than a 4?" Three other judges also scored higher than the penalty for a partial break.
The result of not making the appropriate deduction for the knee bend gave this diver first place. Had the appropriate deduction been made the second place diver would have won. The proof is simple. If only one judge’s score was a point higher than 4, it would have made a difference of 4.7 (dd’s for 203 and 303 pike 2.3 & 2.4) in the final score, which would have reversed the finishing order. The bothersome reality is the difference would have been even larger since 3 other judges’ scores were also higher than the penalty range. This was a close contest and poor judging affected the outcome. It also raises questions pertaining to the entire outcome of the contest. If first and second places are over-shadowed by judges not enforcing the rules, what does it say about the finishing order of the other 18 places? The divers were not allowed to compete on a level playing field. The judges made sure of that by not enforcing the rules that apply to judging. By doing so the good divers are penalized and not so good ones are substantially rewarded. That allows the situation described above to occur.
In order to rectify future, judging problems a suggestion to all high school coaches is that you read, understand and know the Federation rules that apply to diving if you wish to serve as a judge. If you haven’t done that, have no time to do that or just refuse to do that then you should not be a judge. As a judge you are expected to enforce those rules as you determine a score for a particular dive. If you can’t or are not willing to be impartial, you should not be on a judging panel. Judges don’t compete, athletes do! Consider the above implications before volunteering for any panel, especially a Sectional panel.