File Under Things To Say / Things Not To Say

Tournaments doing it right
Acceptance letter includes: "Your acceptance is not a secret. Feel free to tell everyone."

Tournaments doing it less than right 
Rejection letter includes: "This isn't a training wheels tournament."

"Last I Checked Nobody Asked You To Work This Tournament Anyways"

I'm thinking about all of these things as we're getting ready to start work for All 8 On The Floor, which is a training tournament that I've been THRing for the last few years. There are so many tournaments now, which is both amazing and kind of exhausting, and officials are having a wide range of experiences with them.

Some tournament applications ask for references but the THRs aren't checking them. Some others offer early acceptances to tournaments with a strict "don't tell anyone" clause, where acceptances aren't made public for whatever reasons. There are a number of things that go into making a tournament work, but starting with these often sets a tone that sometimes does more harm than good.

My latest pet peeve: tournament applications that don't list the tournament head ref or the tournament head non-skating official.

I know that often NSO planning comes later, but I'm of the opinion that the head officials for the event should be clearly listed on the application along with the nuts and bolts about where the tournament's taking place, when officials are expected to be there, and so on. Most applications have most of this information, but too often the THR and THNSO information is left off the application.

Why? No tournament should be moving forward without these key officials in place. Why would an application elect not to use the THO (tournament head officials) of the event as a key selling point? Furthermore, why wouldn't you let potential applicants know for whom they might be working?

For me, at least this year, I've realized that it's important for me to know. Not everyone's styles mesh and there are people I like working for and people I won't work for any more. If I have to go digging to find out who's running the show, that's not good. That kind of thing absolutely influences whether or not I'll apply to work a tournament.

There are lots of legit reasons why someone might not work a tournament; maybe it's too far away or not worth the travel, or they won't get enough on-skates time to justify the expense. Maybe they don't want to work with certain people. Let your applicants know.

THRs and THNSOs are very much part of the appeal of a tournament. In many ways, they're the public face of officiating in promoting and recruiting for a tournament, and make or break someone's tournament experience. Often that happens before someone even gets through the door; how someone's rejected is important (pro tip: form letter rejections that don't even list the official's name are always the wrong choice) as well as what happens when someone's accepted.

If your THO is generally a jerk, that's an issue. If the THR is a little handsy or gives you the creeps, that's important to know. If your THNSO is going to say things like the title of this piece (an actual quote, sadly, that a THR recently sent my way), maybe that's not someone you want to work with in an official capacity. Or any. (And in my case, not someone I'm going to work with again.)

If your THO is someone you've liked working with before, that's important to know too. If they're someone who's organized and you think will run a good tournament, that's a factor to consider as well. 

To end on a positive note, here's one particularly good example of an application: Maple Stir-Up 2014. Check it out.

Some Nuts & Bolts -- officiating resumes and references (June 2012)

So, we're knee-deep in work for the upcoming All 8 On The Floor tournament that Worcester Roller Derby is hosting in August. Applications have closed, and now we're sifting through the applications. Generally, this sifting means going through the applications, looking at resumes, and checking references. We're doing this background work for two reasons; first, figuring out who we're accepting to work the tournament and who we aren't, but, second, where we're going to staff the people we do accept. (We use a similar process for Empire Skate Showdown, FYI, and those applications are still open for another two weeks.)

For All 8, we require people not only to submit an application but also a officiating resume.  We got some questions back about what that is, and I was reminded of a friend who tried building hers retroactively, which resulted in a lot of scrambling, hair-pulling, and misery.

We wanted to spare y'all a taste of that agony.

Your officiating resume is basically a list of what bouts you worked, when and where they were, who you worked with, and what you did when you were there.

As an example, here's mine -- messy link and all.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgmrY8KZG3urdDJUWUFLdmdtU0o3RmRUN3o1ZDgzdmc#gid=0

Basically, it gives you an overview of what I've worked and what my development's been like as an official.

There are a lot of different ways to set these officiating resumes up. Mine could use a little tweaking; I don't have a section for Head Ref, which is really useful when you're trying to track down evaluations you'd like to have filed. Others have the official's contact information and league affiliation listed on them. I run mine with most recent bout first --  because otherwise you're scrolling through stuff I did in 2008. As I added more, I dropped things like those half-hour bouts that are really fun, but don't actually count as a bout, because they aren't full-length. Unless I'm working a full-length sanctioned or regulation bout, I usually don't list it--tournaments get listed as their own thing (i.e. Beast of the East, which I love doing, doesn't run any full-length bouts, so I don't list those individual bouts.)

Advantages:
You can pretty quickly track what you've done and what you haven't done, so if you're looking to diversify your experience, an officiating resume is a good way to see what you still need to do.
Also, you can show what you've done. I guarantee, if you apply for a tournament, and I'm THR and not totally sure who you are, I will look. I will check your references and read your officiating resume to see what you're doing and at what level. Those things help me decide where I want to staff you.


Couple of tips:
Grab programs from any bout you work; that way you have about all the information you need.
Update frequently, especially if you work every weekend.
Start now. That's why we wanted All 8 folks to start working on one; every tournament you apply to work will ask for one. Don't leave it until the last minute.

And, finally, a couple of quick notes on references:
Think of these like job references. You wouldn't list someone on your job application as a reference without asking them first. Don't do it here. (Besides, it's just good manners to ask!)

I recently got a reference check for someone whose derby name I didn't even recognize and emailed back saying, "Um, I'm not so sure who this is -- what league are they with? Where are they from?" and then, after some back and forth, figured out who it was! Don't be that guy.

Think about the quality of your references. You want to present yourself in a good light, but also a realistic one. Your head ref should probably be listed, but you'll want to think about who else can give a realistic and forthright appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses. Believe me, it's better to have someone who can say, "Yep, this person's pack definition is a little iffy--s/he calls 20 feet kinda short--but s/he is really solid at keeping pace and positioning on outside pack" than "This ref is awesome!" See what I mean? (PS: I made those up; we're not talking about anyone in particular here.)

EDIT: My favorite and least-useful reference reply so far: "[Name of ref] is a rules Yoda." Hilarious, but not at all helpful.

Choose references who are actually prepared to reply to a reference request.  I've sent a lot of unanswered email asking about officials, and it isn't a benefit to you if your references don't reply. It means I have less information about your skills and often affects where you end up being staffed, especially if you're newer.  Also, and though this point seems obvious, it's important: please make sure you actually list the correct email or phone number for your references. Double-check it, and then check it again before hitting that SUBMIT button.

As a side note, just because I don't think people know this point, it's considered (as far as I've learned, anyway) best practice not to have the tournament head ref be one of your references. I know, it's a drag, but think about it: it's kind of like listing the boss as your reference for the job you want to land, no? (This one I learned the hard way; it's also why I have three people on tap for references, so if an application only needs two, but one of my three is the THR, then I'm still covered.)

100 Bouts, or, A Cautionary Tale (August 2011)

I recently found this post, from August of 2011, and I thought it was interesting to look back on some of these points. I wrote it right before I reffed my century bout, which felt like a pretty big deal to me at the time, and thought I'd dust it off and repost, since it seems like some of the issues in it are still worth discussing.


I've been thinking about this upcoming double-header for a while. Making it to 100 bouts doesn't have as much to do with my skill as it does my stubborness; it isn't as if this number accords any special status where I go from "passable" to "good" or any such rating. Like every other ref I have my good qualities and my qualities that still need work, and I've been lucky in that I've had the opportunity to see where those things are.

I think there are some things vitally important for officials, and I still hold that I should learn something from every bout that I work. I've had a lot of opportunity for learning in the last fifty bouts that I've worked. I've worked a range of bouts in a variety of places with a huge range of refs and crews. I had the honor of being a crew head ref at Spring Roll and head reffed what may have been one of the most high-profile bouts in the history of men's derby. I'm one of the co-tournament head refs for Empire Skate Showdown and I'm the assistant head ref for the MRDA Championships in October. These are really important to me and I'm excited to take on these new responsibilities.

I've been challenged. I worked the most nerve-wracking bout of my officiating career this season -- and I got something wrong that the head ref overrode. It's on video. I haven't been able to watch it yet, but I will. What I value is that I'm able to learn from it without being made a spectacle -- as far as I know. It's taken me a while to accept the fact that when I am on the track I'm getting videotaped, photographed, and, in some ways, marketed. I don't like it, because, really, it's not about me.

But at the same time I'm able to set those things aside and stop thinking about them when I'm on the track and I'm working. Because you know what? Refs make mistakes. But we also need to be able to learn from them. I don't say that to excuse those errors. But I want to think about them in a context.

I've spent this year trying to focus on my jam reffing, which is the position I needed more experience with. As a head ref, I understood how it worked, but I hadn't really experienced all of the little nuances that go with it, and the more I jam reffed the more I understood the importance of being a head ref who has her crew's collective back; the kind of head ref who can pull someone aside and in those thirty seconds can find the right words to get a ref back on point, even if something has just gone terribly wrong, and learning to become that ref who can hear those things to fix whatever I'm getting wrong.

And then today I ran across some bout footage from last year. In specific, I'm talking about a stand-alone two-minute clip from a bout I was head reffing in which a ref on my crew makes a noticeable, prominent error. Some of you know the footage I'm referencing, but I'm deliberately being vague because the point I want to make--and one all refs know--is that it could happen to any one of us. And as I watched the clip, which takes maybe 45 seconds of footage at speed and then slows it down to run at half-speed, I found myself feeling angry all over again.

The entire point of this video is to display one ref's mistake; the video lists the ref in question and that ref's league, and makes a very prominent display of one bad call. I can't see what other purpose this video serves.    What it fails to show is that the second that jam was over the ref realized how wrong the call was and that we spent some time sorting it out. What it fails to show is the loud complaining at another league's bout the next day by the videographer who then badmouthed that ref at any opportunity for months afterward.

What that video also fails to do is encourage that ref to improve. It is mortifying and it is painful, and it is out there on the internet forever linked to this ref's name. So I ask you, since it's kind of a hot topic in derby right now: how are video like these not a form of bullying?

Here's what I'm taking away from this situation, because I want to think positively about what good can come of situations like these. What I want to do in my future bouts is always be that good ref who supports her crew, always be the ref who encourages people to improve and succeed and to try to be a role model as I continue to work. I want to find new challenges and work to improve.

But I also want to be braver about speaking up. I want to be able to point to things that I think corrupt community and to find ways that we can be better about supporting one another -- refs, NSOs, and skaters. And I want you to do it too. I want to find ways to step up in discussions and try to get people thinking differently about officials, because the more I can talk with you about what I do and what my job is like, the better we are all going to make derby as a whole.

And that's my hope for bout #99, bout #100, bout #101 and on into the rest of my officiating career.

Some Derby Math (April 2012)

Here's another post -- this one's from April of 2012, but I think the points still apply.

I've been thinking about this topic for a while. Most of you know I switched jobs about six months ago, from a pretty posh corporate day job (soulsucking but well-paying) to teaching (in public schools, part-time, for barely any money at all, but my quality of life is a lot better).

This change has had a couple of interesting effects. More to the point, I've been paying closer attention to exactly how much it costs for me to work a bout, both in terms of the financial aspects and the emotional aspects. I know that sounds a little hokey, but let me explain.

The financial stuff is pretty straightforward: getting to and from a bout within a 90 minute or so range of my house usually takes about $20 worth of gas and often there are tolls. The range beyond that, say, three hours, usually doubles that total (unless I have to deal with the Throgs Neck tolls, which are now a whopping $6.50 each way). So, we're looking at about $20 to $50. I try to carpool as often as I can, and I'm almost always carpooling with another ref. These long drives are great for debriefing on rules geekery and catching up, so that's an added bonus. If I can network a newer ref into a league I like working with as a ref, all the better.

Before I worked in public education, I didn't do a lot of this kind of math because, honestly, I didn't worry about making rent every month. Now I do; it's one of the things I knew was coming as part of this job change, but it's made me think a lot more about saying yes to coming to work bouts.

Here's the bottom line: I wish every league made it a priority to compensate their visiting officials. Gas money is a good way to start; gas is expensive ($3.85 a gallon when I filled up to head to a bout yesterday). Water and snacks are awesome and should be standard in locker rooms: whatever the home league provides for visiting teams, they should provide for officials as well. Most places do. I know it's expensive to do these things, but it's also expensive for me to come work your bouts.

Compensate is a broad word. When I first started officiating, leagues couldn't give me gas money because they were still starting out and trying to break even, but they could totally swing giving me a t-shirt. Some leagues have a table with food for everyone by the locker rooms. Some leagues have food for everyone at the afterparty. Some leagues have both. Some places run a bar tab for their officials or have free beer for officials when the bout is over.  And some leagues do regularly slip their officials $20 to cover some gas costs.

But this sort of gets into the emotional aspects of derby. If I'm driving three hours each way to work for a league who I know is going to kick some cabbage my way to help cover gas costs and they're actually excited about my being there to ref, I'm going to say yes to as many of their requests as I can. Even if they're not able to give me gas money, but their players are nice when I show up and treat me like I'm part of their derby community, I'm going to be more inclined to go there. In fact, if the choice is between a place where I'm going to get gas money but be treated badly or a place with no compensation but where I'm going to be treated like a professional, I'm gonna take that second option. (In an ideal universe, it will be both: treated decently and given a little something to help with time and travel.)

The inverse of that is also true, by the way.

I respect everyone's opinions about officiating, and though it personally drives me a little crazy when there's post-bout ref bashing going on, either verbally or online, I still fully believe in free speech.  You have the right to say it. I have the right to disagree with it, but I generally try not to butt in and bust your chops on it, unless it strikes a really sour note with me. I know it's maddening to be mid bout and have to deal with certain aspects of a bout that are less than ideal. And, you know, sometimes I actually agree with you; there are instances where the officiating isn't ideal.

But I'm also not a robot, and in the big picture I think public ref-bashing does a lot of harm.

The reality right now of roller derby in the densely packed derby arena of the Northeast means that there is a major shortage of officials, primarily for the non-WFTDA leagues. Most WFTDA leagues that I know generally have enough officials to cover their bouts. Other leagues -- and this includes men's derby -- don't. They just don't.

This situation is sort of an unfortunate perfect storm. There are probably 20 or 30 different leagues within my 3-ish hours travel radius, and of those 20-30 leagues many have bouts on the same Saturday, because derby  happens pretty much every Saturday from now until about October.
Of these 20 to 30 leagues, I can think of maybe two or three that have enough officials to staff their own bouts. This means that everyone's frantically borrowing from everyone else; there are too many bouts and not enough officials to go around. And, for the record, when I say officials I'm including everyone, from refs at my experience level all the way through to the rookies working their first or second bouts. People are at different places in their officiating development, and the training resources aren't really available in equal measure to leagues.

WFTDA folks usually (not always, but often) prefer to work WFTDA regulation or sanctioned bouts, because those bouts are what you need for certification, development, and advancement within WFTDA.

Non-WFTDA bouts are often left scrambling to get things staffed. I know this, because for two years it was my job at Pioneer Valley Roller Derby where I was head ref, and now it's sort of my job again as the head ref for the Connecticut Death Quads. I spent a year making good on PVRD's debts, in one of those "you work one of ours and I'll work one of yours" trades. Between March and October, I could potentially be working every weekend. (Conservately, let's say I work 3 bouts a month; we're looking at 21 weekends at between $20 and $50 per trip.)

I love derby, but this is a wholly unsustainable model from an officiating perspective. We don't have enough people to officiate. We don't have a central training body or resources (i.e. one WFTDA clinic a year isn't enough). We don't have a New England union or consortium to help trade officials and resources and training. We sometimes are forced to staff people before they're totally ready, or we have an infield crew who have never done their jobs before and have to learn on the job, and this leads to things getting missed or calls sometimes being not quite right on, which leads to people getting frustrated, which turns into ref-bashing, which makes people not want to ref.

See how it's a nasty cycle? WE NEED TO FIX THIS. All of us. If we want better officiating in the Northeast, we all need to step up and start working on it.

So here's my call to action, in no particular order.

1. Skaters: I'm not saying that you shouldn't express your feelings about how a bout went. You totally should -- just do it in private. Do it with your team. Please don't do it where some rookie ref is going to see it  and think, "Man, I'm never working that team's bouts again." If you're later able to boil it down and tell your head ref something constructive (i.e. "Do people understand how direction of gameplay works?") maybe that turns into training that means next time they get it right. If you don't have a head ref, tell me. I'll make sure the information gets out for people to think about.

When I was teaching college and handing back papers with grades, I used to tell my students to pick up their paper, get out of earshot of me and the other students, take a quick 360 look around to make sure nobody was in earshot who shouldn't be, and then cut loose. Same basic principle here.

2. Teams: I know that the bulk of your league's money comes from bouts. Please know that when you schedule bouts the same weekend as a number of other leagues in the region, it's going to affect the staffing available to you.  Scheduling non-conflicting bouts just doesn't seem to be a viable option; that's just what derby looks like right now in the region.  That said, think about how you want to appear as a league in order to get people to come in and work your bouts. Do you cuss out officials from the track? Do you come in and thank the crew after the bout, even if you think it was the suckiest suck that ever sucked? Gas money? T-shirts? Cookies? Cards that the league signed? (I know it sounds hokey, but you can't underestimate the warm fuzzies stuff like that engenders.) Whatever you decide to do, do something that recognizes that someone just drove 90 minutes to get to you, has a 90 minutes drive home, and was just on skates for anywhere between 1.5 to 4 hours for no pay.

Related, if there's officials training happening somewhere, cover your officials' gas to get there or part of their entry fee or something. Make it worth their while to get there, because their participation and learning is going to benefit your entire league in the long run.

Also related: you play like you practice. If your league is in the habit of bullying or badmouthing officials in practice, that's not productive. If you have a skater who does it, address it. Redirect it. You wouldn't let skaters talk to their teammates that way, would you?

3. Announcers/boutcasters/textcasters: AFTDA has a great Code of Conduct. Make the bout fun, do good reporting, but make the skaters the stars of the show, not the officials. Ref-bashing helps nobody. Some of the very best announcers I've seen keep it lively, keep the crowd engaged, and keep the focus on the skaters.

4. Officials: I know it's hard to hear criticism. But make it your job to hear criticism when it's presented in a respectful way. You don't have to take lip from skaters, but don't dismiss the content out of hand either. File it away to think about later, but don't let it give you the yips mid-bout. Work with crews and respect your head ref. Be a team player, even if you've heard the head ref's captain's meeting before. Pay attention. Support one another--and this includes the NSOs too. This is especially important if you're an experienced official and there are rookies on your crew. Be a good role model. Be professional in everything that you do. Be nice to each other.

I am making these my front runner goals this season, particularly that last one which I don't always manage to pull off.

5. Rookie officials: Your first year is going to be crazy hard and discouraging. You're going to miss stuff. You're going to get stuff wrong. You're going to not be in the right place sometimes as an OPR. Bouts are gonna run late. Things are gonna happen. You're gonna end up as an OPR a lot, so skate more outside of practice. People are gonna yell. Take it in stride and make it your goal to get better, work harder, skate more, reread the rules, ask questions, and work every bout you can stand to work.

6. Officials: Say no to bouts sometimes. You're gonna burn out if you don't, especially if you've recently worked a bout that felt like you were getting kicked in the gut repeatedly and you're feeling cranky about derby. It happens. Not every bout is gonna feel like a win. Carpool with other refs and debrief in the car on the way home, or at Denny's, or at a ref afterparty. But if we're asking skaters to be mindful of where they debrief and how, that goes double for us. Every skater gets a clean slate before starting a bout, no matter what foul that skater committed, no matter what he or she said to you on the track last time, no matter how much it cut to the quick. Do what you need to do to learn from the bout, but make sure you're learning and improving.

Everyone:
Get trainers in for your leagues.
Work on your own training.
Think about how we can make this better.
Derby is awesome, and we have to find ways to make it awesome for everyone.
Inspire and support new officials.
Recruit people into reffing not like it's a second-choice option or a consolation prize, but as the real, viable option it is. If you talk about it like a next-best choice, people are going to treat it like that. Skaters, if your captains will let you (and you don't already ref), come ref a few practices. It'll blow your mind and give you a kind of interesting, different perspective.

Roller Derby Saved My Soul and Other Myths

Almost everyone in derby's seen the ROLLER DERBY SAVED MY SOUL t-shirts; it references the title (and chorus) of a song in which the glorious attributes of ass-kickin' derby skaters are extolled. But in the song, though, at least to my understanding, the person whose soul gets saved isn't the skater -- it's the dude watching from the sidelines.

So how did this phrase become this rallying cry for roller derby, exactly? I get that roller derby can be an empowering thing for skaters of all genders; I've seen skaters get into derby and discover their inner badasses and it can do some good work for a lot of people (or, alternatively, people can do good work with it).

But at the same time, there is a part of me that wonders exactly how much of a disservice the starry-eyed cliche of how much roller derby saves our collective souls does to people who are like, Uh, this is my hobby. I do this for fun, and that's it -- especially for officials. 

In the six or so years I've been officiating, I've seen more officials retire than skaters, and I think that's pretty telling, because at some point it stops becoming fun ... and the rate at which it becomes not-fun for officials seems, at least from my perspective, significantly faster than it is for skaters. 

One of the overwhelming things that officials seem to state why they leave is that they're fed up. They're tired of being treated badly, or as lesser somehow, or they get tired of politics or internal drama -- because the myth that officials don't have drama is just that; a huge myth -- and I've been thinking about this point a bit lately, what with yet another change to the ruleset and derby evolving again, and where I am in it.

One of the things I've always liked about derby is that it isn't a static sport; it's evolving and changing. And at the same time, those changes -- at least to the rules -- are skater driven and are things we have little to no input on. Most of the time, that's fine for most officials, but sometimes it isn't.

And we need better spaces to talk about those points without fear of retaliation or backlash or butthurt.

As officials, we evolve and change too. Some of us go independent because our leagues are sucking the life out of us or we don't feel supported or, goddamn it, we're just tired. Or we transfer leagues because there's a skater making our life hell, or we feel frustrated and disrespected and have to change something, and it's easier to change who you work with than it is to change people's minds about policy when their answer is "But this is the way we've always done it."

Sometimes the way you've always done it doesn't work anymore.

Some of us stop working tournaments; some of us decide never to work tournaments in the first place. Some of us want to work the tournaments but don't get accepted for whatever reasons. Some of us get frustrated with the fact that it's always the same people working as tournament head refs and making decisions about who gets to work and where, but with no seeming oversight. Some of us decide not to work with certain people anymore, and that's got to be recognized as a valid choice too. (Leagues? Tournament organizers? Listen to officials when they tell you these kinds of things.)

And these things get talked about behind the scenes, but never in public, because we don't want to seem negative or biased or like we're complaining. But really, the behind-the-scenes is mean and critical; I've been called plenty of nasty things by fellow officials who didn't think that I was in earshot or that it wouldn't get back to me. And I recently got harassed so nastily via private message by a fellow official that I finally ended up reporting him for code of conduct violations because I am just super out of patience with people being nasty and thinking they're untouchable because, hey, we're just officials and it's a hobby. It doesn't matter, does it?

But, you know what? It matters.  It might be a hobby, but that doesn't give you free reign to be a jerk.

Here's another myth: we don't all like each other. Those bouts that don't flow? Yeah. Sometimes that's why. I work with people I don't like and don't trust all the time, because that's what you sometimes have to do as a working adult. I imagine it's the same for skaters, frankly; you don't love everyone on your team all the time (or ever) and people trash-talk just as much there (and sometimes even on the track where we can hear you).

But here's the thing: at some point, people get tired of all of it and it isn't fun any more. Derby is demanding and expensive and awesome and disappointing, and at some point the highs don't counteract the lows any more. It's hard to walk away from a hobby that takes more out of you than the average hobby (and we kind of kid about it, about how the derby monster eats your life, but what happens when you tell the derby monster you're done with your life being dinner?). 

I had an epiphany that prompted me to quit the Men's Roller Derby Association late last year, an organization I was part of and supported even in the previous incarnation, back when it was a coalition and there were four men's teams in it. 

The epiphany was simple: if things were this bad at a job, I'd quit. 

So I did.

I quit an organization that I'd been part of since it started -- since before it started, in fact -- because being part of it was making me miserable. I took my MRDA patch off my ref uniform and was surprised that I didn't feel sad about it. I love men's derby, but I don't miss the drama, the ego, the constant holding-your-tongue that happens when you represent an organization. I got tired of defending people I didn't want to have to defend in order to make men's derby officiating look as if we were some cohesive, supportive unit. 

It's been three months since I left, and I'm still not sorry I did it.

The thing is, doing so freed me up to spend time thinking about what I actually like about derby, and what parts of it are satisfying to me, and what I get out of what parts of it. Because it's still expensive and crazy-making and so on, but those things are smaller-scale again. I can do the things that I like -- like put together a training tournament and help officials develop and feel valued -- without having to deal with the other things that make derby miserable. 

I get to reshuffle priorities and not apply to the tournaments that do not help me develop as an official, and instead I can work the ones that will. I can still have positive experiences without all the background noise and static.

...and that's been awesome.

In Praise of Contact Drills, or, I'm So Happy My Collarbones Hurt Today by Bowen

        As a Roller Derby referee, one needs an exhaustive knowledge of the current rule set, an ability to correctly interpret said rules, and the eye-whistle-hand-mouth coordination to correctly administer said rules while in motion and observing as many as ten other humans, all of whom are also in motion. Professionalism, impartiality, teamwork, and a good sense of humor (that must not be displayed during a game) are also vital to successful officiating, but these last four attributes are not my focus here. My focus is, instead, on the physicality required by this job.
        Referees must be as much as one and a half times as fast as the fastest pack, two-thirds as fast as the fastest jammer while turning more sharply, and able to stop on a dime, double back, and then break into a sprint again. With thirty seconds between jams and no bench rest. While avoiding other officials who are engrossed in their own duties, skaters en route to or from the penalty box, bench staff, and downed or out-of-control skaters and fellow officials. Yet when we tell people that we are "in" Roller Derby, the phrase "I'm just a ref" sometimes slips out. I used to say this, but now I know that there is no "just" in Roller Derby.
        Some referees come to Roller Derby as strong skaters, others are referees during or after their playing career, and that's wonderful. I am of the class of referees who started as Fresh Meat, lacing up skates for the first time at the age of forty one. After passing my Level Two skills assessment, I was loosed upon the world and began attending only scrimmage practices once a week. My skating deteriorated, my confidence evaporated, and my love of Roller Derby dissipated. Something was wrong.
        I miss all of the plays I can't see, and I can't see all of the plays that happen when I'm out of position, and I can't be in position unless I am confident, agile, fast, and stable. The solution, in my case, was a long off-season of attending practice two or three nights a week, and participating in every drill where the coach did not ask me to watch for penalties. I spent cool-down laps, time outs during scrimmage, and water breaks working on transitions, tomahawk stops, and skating backwards (my hat-trick of weaknesses). I threw myself into weaving through pace lines and all-eighting through a hundred laps of quadriceps cramps and shin splints. My skating improved, slowly, to where I started to feel steady and ready. I was able to see so much more game play simply because I could now be in position with far less mental and physical effort.
        All of this gave me the ability to avoid contact and stay upright and in position, but just as important is a familiarity with contact. Sometimes a referee can't avoid contact, either because there is insufficient time and separation to get around an obstacle/human or because the collision comes as a surprise from a direction where the referee isn't looking. Knowing that I can safely take a hit (even a surprise hit) and maintain or regain my assigned position to keep calling the game is as important as knowing how to apply the rules, assign penalties, and award points.
        All of which brings me to last night. The assignment was a one-on-one positional blocking drill. With an odd number of players, coach put me in as a human tackle sled and then mentioned that blocking while skating backwards would be allowed (and even encouraged). I tried blocking backwards, and to my great surprise I could actually do it without maiming myself or my partner. To her apparent surprise, so could my partner. After a water break, the drill continued with me observing and providing feedback on legality and coach working with my former partner to hone and improve her newfound skill.  I was now a better skater than when I came to practice, and although blocking while skating backwards is not a referee skill per se, I should be a better referee for having improved my skating skills, body awareness, and stability. I am grateful for every opportunity to improve the physical aspect of my craft that coach and my leaguemates provide me, and it's why I attend every practice that I can.
        Don't get me wrong. I'm not a frustrated would-be player who "settled" for being a referee. There are multiple men's leagues within a semi-reasonable commute that I could try out for, but I am all-in as an official. Nor do I aspire to be "one of the girls" as that would disrupt the team's internal dynamic and interfere with my focus on constantly improving my refereeing. I participate in non-scrimmage practices in whatever capacity coach and the captains see fit.
        What's my point? Aside from a new appreciation for just how bony and hard one human's shoulder driven into another human's collarbone can be, that is?
        I firmly believe that referees need to be comfortable with the contact that inevitably occurs in this job. The best way to gain this comfort is to be a part of contact drills. It's not about blocking or hitting, really. It's about getting safer when crashy things happen because during a Roller Derby game, things really do gang aft agley. If you have the opportunity to improve this aspect of your craft, take it. If you don't, advocate for it. If you have influence over your league's policy, consider allowing referees to participate in contact drills if currently they can't.
        I don't have the level of skating skills that I would like to have, and hopefully I never will. Hopefully I will always try to get better at my job. Good enough can't be good enough for a referee in Roller Derby. The players put everything they have into becoming competitive athletes, and it does them, the fans, the production staff, and the other officials a tremendous disservice if I don't follow suit.
        Next time I warm up with you before a game, dear reader, feel free to spin me around and try to get by me.

Roller derby did not save my soul by Fury Duty

Roller derby did not save my soul.

When I discovered derby, I was recently divorced and had few, in any, friends.  I was in therapy and trying to put my life in some sort of order.  (I don’t use the phrase “put my life back together” because I don’t think it had ever really been “together” up to that point.)  I had failed to maintain my pre-marriage friendships during my short marriage.  I landed in Connecticut after moving here for law school, and the folks I had known in law school had mostly moved out-of-state for work.  I was a single owner of two dogs with a ton of time on my hands and without a Netflix subscription.  I was the perfect candidate for soul saving.

I went to a fresh meat night intending to become a roller derby skater.  At first, I was astounded and impressed by the community I found at my local women’s league.  Everyone loved each other.  You had a gazillion sisters!  Yay!

Only it didn’t exactly work that way. I am exceedingly shy in groups of people I don’t know and didn’t really talk to any derby people for the first three or four months I was involved in my league.  When you don’t talk, people think you’re not listening and it’s amazing the things folks will say in front of you.  I watched the drama unfold as the gossip began and evolved and found its way into the collective consciousness of the league.  I knew who didn’t like whom, who had slept with whom, which skater thought she should have been rostered instead of some other skater, and exactly what everyone thought of the refs.

But I needed my soul to be saved, so I got involved.  I was elected to a board position.  I switched to ref track after I realized that the lawyer in me preferred rules and order over the contact and apparent lunacy of the action on the track.  I bought a set of stripes and was so crazy wicked excited to debut as a skating official after a season of NSOing.  I had all these people around me who were supportive and fun and gave me a social life.  I was gonna me a mean zebra machine.  I was gonna learn all the rules and be super-awesome.  I was gonna ref tournaments someday.

And then I broke my ankle minutes before I was supposed to OPR my first event.  I knew I’d be off skates for a while.  I was pretty grumpy.  Meanwhile, things at my Real Job started to go bad.  The politics of my job—I had become politically unfavorable within my public sector law job for a host of reasons—was turning really ugly.  While rehabbing the ankle, I lost my job.

After a long while off (and after giving up my board position because life had gotten in the way), I returned to derby.  Whether it was objectively true, I felt like I did not fit in with the skaters.  After being gone for so long, I felt I did not fit in with the officials.  I was being passed over for staffing at my home league bouts and had no idea why.  Worst of all, I wasn’t growing as an official.  I felt like I wasn’t learning.  I decided to travel around and see how officiating worked at other leagues.

I saw things I liked and things I didn’t like.  I got more involved in the officiating community in my region, as opposed to staying within my league.  (As someone who is inherently shy and socially anxious, this was very difficult for me to do.)  I was learning and seeing and experiencing different brands of leadership and rules interpretation. But I also noticed the politics when it came to higher-level officiating; who was staffed, who wasn’t staffed, which individuals seemed to work more closely or more often with other individuals.

These observations caused me to become a lot more focused on derby and league politics at “home.”  It seemed that my “fun” life was mirroring my “real” life.  It seemed to me that policies were changing in a way that made the officiating staff seem like second-class citizens.  There was tension among the officials.  There was tension with the skaters and the board and the officials and the way each of the three units interacted with each other. I became frustrated.  I said some things I never should have said.  My soul wasn’t saved.  I was angry.  I. Was. Fed. Up.  And I hadn’t even started officiating on skates yet!

I ended up transferring to a different league; I chose the league primarily because of the head ref, whose teaching style meshes best with my learning style.  (This isn’t to say there aren’t other leagues and officials I love to work with. But being able to learn in a safe environment at one’s home league is really important to a new ref.)

I love derby.  I love the rules, I love the complexities, I love the Island of Misfit Toys types of folks who seem to gravitate towards the officiating world.  It is a lot of fun.  Except when it isn’t. Having refereed for only half a season, my perspective has shifted.  Some other officials don’t understand why I have no desire to ref the big WFTDA and MRDA tournaments. For me, it’s about the fun.  As it turns out, I didn’t actually need any soul saving.  That’s something I have to do on my own and no amount of derby is going to do it for me.

Officiating roller derby: This is what I do for fun.  It’s my hobby, not my job.  I hope that by focusing on the aspects I like—and keeping in perspective that it is only a hobby—derby will remain fun for me for a good long while.

you are not the pivot

all credit is due to Drop Dead Gorgon for the title.

(I'm still trying to figure out exactly why it resonated so much and so quickly, but it did.)