\u201cI was coaching in the Ohio Capital Conference before you were born\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did NOT say that to the young assistant coach from a school across town. He was letting me know how the Ohio Capital Conference, the \u201cOCC\u201d, considered the premier conference in the state, runs their track meet. I was officiating the pole vault, and needed two workers to help put the bar up. He was making sure I knew that it wasn\u2019t his problem. He needed the kids he had for his \u201churdle crew\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t tell him that I was the meet manager for OCC Championship track and cross country meets for more than a decade. I didn\u2019t tell him that my own track teams won four OCC Championships. And I didn\u2019t tell him I was in the OCC Hall of Fame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I must be getting old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least that\u2019s what some of the coaches in the pole vault competition said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the first championship week of May, and over four days I will officiate eight pole vault competitions.\u00a0\u00a0Each takes a few hours, and the athletes and coaches are all fired up.\u00a0\u00a0For some of the kids it\u2019s their chance to \u201cwin the Conference\u201d and to prepare for the State qualifying meets starting next week.\u00a0\u00a0And for some, it\u2019s their last competition of the season, the last chance to clear that \u201cgoal height\u201d they been shooting for all year.\u00a0\u00a0For the coaches \u2013 it\u2019s their chance to show how much progress they\u2019ve made this year.\u00a0\u00a0And, of course, to score points for their team, to try to win their own team OCC Championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That energy can be infectious, and I find myself slipping back into coaching mode. That\u2019s not a \u201cgood thing\u201d: as the official I need to take a calm, passive role. No one in my forty years of coaching ever called me calm or passive. My place now though, is, \u201cHere\u2019s the rules, here\u2019s how we are getting this event done, Good Luck\u201d. I want the vaulters, already hyped by the meet and their cranked-up coaches, not to be distracted by me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I\u2019m not quite halfway through the eight meet blitz, and I need to do a little better with the \u201ccalm, dispassionate\u201d official thing. There was one competition on Wednesday, two on Thursday, two more tonight (Friday), and the final three on Saturday. I find that when I start to get a little tired, I start to fall back into old habits. I\u2019m going to be a lot more tired before this stretch is over \u2013 so here on Friday morning I\u2019m \u201cre-grouping\u201d a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officiating is all about being \u201cfair\u201d. But it\u2019s also all about being organized. There are lots of \u201cpieces\u201d that fall into a good pole vault competition, and any failure of one piece can create a lot of problems. And there\u2019 always pressure: pressure on the kids to perform, pressure on the coaches (some I taught to vault) to succeed. And there\u2019s the pressure on the \u201cworkers\u201d to get everything right, every vault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there\u2019s also drudgery. The \u201ckids\u201d (or adults) who put the bar up and place it in the right place, do it over and over and over. A \u201cbig\u201d competition might have over 150 attempts. That\u2019s 150 times of putting the bar up, and placing the sliding standards to the personal preference of the vaulter, in the hot sun, without checking a cell phone. It\u2019s easy to lose focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I might stand on the runway calling out the order and whether a vault is good or not, but it\u2019s those workers setting the bar and standards that make the event go \u2013 or not. They are my \u201cteam\u201d for the meet, and our \u201cchampionship\u201d is to run a fair and efficient competition. And if we can have a little fun along the way \u2013 that\u2019s fine too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did get my two workers for the pole vault yesterday. And we completed two good competitions. Time to get ready for the Licking County League tonight, and more OCC tomorrow. Looking forward to being fair and dispassionate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"