FHumpires.com
When Things Don’t Go As Planned
October 06 2010
When I write for this site the articles are generally very positive. This is not one of those entries. I am posting it so that those who read it can learn from a very painful and personal experience from my time at the Commonwealth Games.
Great Expectations
As you will have most likely read in an earlier blog post, the Commonwealth Games is an event that not many get an opportunity to take part in and for me is the payoff of ten long years umpiring and a lifetime dream come true. Appointments are not handed out willy nilly and to be selected to represent Canada means I earned it. I deserve to be here. It will come as a surprise, then, for you to hear how that feeling left me as I walked out onto the main field here in Delhi.
I had put a lot of thought into my first match. I had done the visualization; running plays in my head and how I would react or look when making the absolute correct decision. There was no concern over my match fitness and no injuries to distract me from the job at hand. I had also been watching the other matches and was in awe of the other guys doing such a fantastic job.
Pitch #1
The stadium in Delhi is one of the premier hockey facilities in the world. The complex is quite large with two pitches capable of hosting games (the second pitch is what you would typically find in most countries that host hockey with a capacity of about 2,500 people). The main stadium can hold just under 20,000 people, and though ticket sales have been far from sell-outs it is quite an imposing structure, especially when you stand at centre and look around.
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when my confidence began to shrink, but the gravity of my situation hit home when I happened to catch a glance out of the corner of my eye of my face on the big screens at one end of the stadium. I felt a rush of panic at the realization that this was big, and for a moment all of the positive thoughts of deserving to be here went away. I felt out of my league, like it was my first international match. The truth is that I had umpired both teams before, one more than I care to admit.
Not The Tone I Wanted To Set
My first decision came a minute into the game with an aerial ball along my side-line. We had been very specific in our briefings about getting these particular calls correct and here was my chance. I saw the play quite clearly and my initial reaction was to blow the whistle. If I had done I would have got the first one out of the way and set myself on the right track. I made a critical error, however, and thought about it for a moment. When you have umpired as long as I have the one thing you can’t do is go against your instincts. By the time I had thought about it the moment had passed and the opportunity to make the call was gone, as was my confidence. A minute later I had the identical play and made the right decision, but I had lost the initiative and would play catch-up for the remainder of the match.
Missed plays, break-downs not dealt with, the inevitable dissent you get when players sense your weakness like sharks sense blood in the water. And they had every right to feel the way they did; I was not good enough. The self-fulfilling prophecy had come true; I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t believe I was.
Cardinal Sin
The one thing you can’t be as an umpire is inconsistent. Players take it as you being unfair, and usually against them. At worst they think you are incompetent, and while that is far from the truth in my case I didn’t really help matters much. My good friend Peter put it best in the bus afterwards, that you can’t go hunting for calls because you are sure to find them. I sent a T&T player off for a slide tackle because I felt we’d missed a couple before that and I wanted to reign them in. The fact that he got the ball cleanly escaped me at the time. A ball kicked high off the keeper’s kicker out of the circle I called a penalty corner when 9 times out of 10 I would have yelled play on. A 15m free hit out that I had initially called a long corner and made worse by calling my colleague over to discuss it instead of just taking his decision. In short I fought every play and every decision, digging myself a deeper hole instead of digging myself out of one.
Lessons To Be Learned
So what can we all take from this horrible experience (I am sure that I am being more critical than anyone else can possibly be)? I would like to talk about two plays in particular that if I had gotten them correct I would not have found myself complicating matters and the match might have gone smoother.
The first one is the aerial ball. Once the ball is safely in the air there is no need to watch it. Look down field to where you project it will come down and make your decision early. If you feel there is a potentially dangerous situation (more than one person in the area to receive the ball) you want to blow your whistle early, when the ball is 5-10 meters away.Doing this early will set yourself and the players up for later in the match. They want to know what you are going to allow and what you won’t, so being strict early will make it easier to be consistent.
The slide tackle is another one I want to tell you about. In this particular instance the players were running away from me with the ball out of my view. This decision was best left to my colleague as it was moving towards him. I was fishing and you can’t do that. Try to avoid complicating things by playing catch-up as you can’t win. If you feel yourself losing control, slow down, focus and above all remain calm. Be prepared to make your call when a player goes to ground, but don’t look to nail him for it just because he does. Penalize the foul if and when it happens.
Finally, at the end of the day, no matter how big or small the game is, how many people watching (don’t forget there was a world TV audience witnessing my worst game ever!) or who you are working with, it boils down to a simple game and you are there to do a job, but also to enjoy it. What I did was not fun, and that should have clued me in early. Keep some perspective when you are umpiring and just try to do your best. It is all anyone can ask, even of myself.
Comments
- GavCalde
07:48am, 10/07/2010
Hey John,
Going to try and pay you back something you did for me at the Canadian Nationals this year. Remember the game where I had a certain ex-National team player throwing the ball off the field in disgust at a decision of mine? And a few other players doing there best to verbally kick me off the field?? Ring a bell?
That was a fun day indeed. But we got off the field and went in to the de-brief, and talked about it. You gave me a pat on the back and a vote of confidence. And we ended up doing the same team the next two days in a row. And not just doing the games, man, we did them at a good damn high level of umpiring.
I’m sorry that I’m not there to do the next game with you - wow that would be fun - but John, of all the umpires I’ve worked with, in Van, in Calgary, in Victoria, at CalCup, in Mexico, I’ve had the most fun working with you. Because I know you’re damn good, you enjoy what you do, and that you’ve worked harder than most just to make it to where you are.
So friggin chalk that last one off to experience, and KNOW that you are going to do a better job on Friday, cos I know you are going to do it. Lesson learnt, moving forward. And yes, you gotta enjoy…. now put that huge freakin smile of yours on full display!
Cheers,
Gavin - DeToro
05:48pm, 10/07/2010
Howdy John, Ditto Gavin’s last paragraph! Stop analyzing and start enjoying!!!! Detoro
