Shouldn’t Swimming Officials Be Paid?

Shouldn’t people who write editorials regarding a wholesale change to USA Swimming know the difference between hours and ours? ” The officials, tirelessly watching over the swimmers, standing at the side of the pool for ours at a time…”

We are professional volunteers. We take great pride in being the best and most fair officials we can be. We do it for the love of the sport, the amazing athletes and because we enjoy it! We take vacation from our paying jobs to volunteer. If we were paid then it just becomes another job. If we were in it for the money then we would continue to work more at our paying jobs. Officials as a bunch are professional and educated. We are teachers, principles, marketing executives, CPA’s, nurses, surgeons, physicians, engineers, pilots, lawyers, business owners, medical researchers, and so much more. Yes it does get expensive and yes we all have a certain amount of discretionary income but we enjoy volunteering! I would entertain PARTIAL expenditure reimbursement but not paying us for our time. But I would never want to take away our ability to be a blessing to others and to be blessed!

Wow I am shocked they don’t get paid. We have always paid for soccer officials at every level of play including indoor and outdoor. There are expenses to be covered. Should be paid. Oh and soccer games are 90 mins max not an all day or two day meet.

There are so many levels of officiating, parents start because they want to learn the sport their kids are in, they develop skills and a love of volunteering ( which is quickly disappearing in our society due to people like this author.) then officials can work up to becoming national level certified. Ultimately it is love of the sport and pride that keep volunteers coming back. Don’t ruin a good thing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I love being an official. I always appreciate the coaches, swimmers, and parents that thank me after a session or a meet. That is payment enough for me. Now, if you want to pay me for the 6 heats of 1500s at the end of the last session, make the check out to… 😉

A thank you can go a long way, for sure and makes a difference to me.

Love to work for food but could appreciate the pay. Most times we give entire Saturday and Sunday. This isn’t a 2 hour baseball game.

If volunteering in sport all became paid, events would simply stop happening. And that applies to a lot of the rest of the stuff that happens in the world too …

Yes

There is a decent sized pool of potential officials for local meets: parents, especially the ones who used to swim. If you want more officials for the local USS swim meets, then USS Swimming should make it easier for people to get certified.

In my case, my sons’ team competes in USS and YMCA meets. I am a YMCA certified official because our team’s annual meet is a YMCA meet, we need officials and I was asked to get certified because I was a swimmer. To get the level 1 certification, all I needed to do was take a 4 hour class and then pass an online test.

I looked into getting certified by USS swimming and found out it’s much more time consuming to do so. Although the actual class is shorter, you also have to “shadow” certified officials for a few meets before you can become certified. If you are a novice, it’s probably a good idea. But, if you’re not, it means that you need to spend four or five times as much time getting certified than you need to spend to become a YMCA official.

For me, that was just too high an entry barrier so I officiate USS meets. I am sure that there are plenty of other former swimmers, who are parents and who would be willing to contribute a couple afternoons or mornings a year to being an official at a local meet. Let’s try to make it easier for them to help out, not run up the costs for local clubs that are trying to raise a little money for their team.

YES

No

Rocio De La Fuente

Frank Stevens. Linda Stoops.

Tracy Boland

At least cover travel expenses.

Yes