{"id":150719,"date":"2015-08-18T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T21:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=150719"},"modified":"2015-09-02T13:17:13","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T20:17:13","slug":"shouldnt-swimming-officials-be-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/shouldnt-swimming-officials-be-paid\/","title":{"rendered":"Shouldn’t Swimming Officials Be Paid?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alex Labonge, Swimming World Intern<\/em><\/p>\n

Imagine standing behind the starting blocks, waiting to begin a race. \u00a0Who is the last person that you see, only a few feet away, whether you realize it or not? \u00a0The officials, tirelessly watching over the swimmers, standing at the side of the pool for hours at a time, constantly being splashed and leaving a session exhausted and reeking of chlorine.<\/p>\n

These hard-working individuals do all of this for free. \u00a0Without officials, swim meets would have no validity, no accountability, no backbone. \u00a0My question is this: Shouldn’t these officials be paid for this?<\/p>\n

The average official for a youth sporting match, such as basketball or baseball, makes between $9 and $17 an hour. \u00a0Why can this not be applied to our swimming officials?<\/p>\n

Jim Holcomb<\/strong> is the current Chair of Officials for USA Swimming and is charged with leading the efforts of the National Officials Committee and enhancing officiating throughout USA Swimming. \u00a0“Our tradition is volunteerism,” said Holcomb. “Still, it is expensive to volunteer at national events. Some local swim communities provide funding for officials to attend larger regional and national meets.”<\/p>\n

With that being said, many do not, and nearly no officials receive reimbursement for any meet on the local scale. \u00a0On the national level, most Local Swim Committees (LSC) offer a modest compensation to officials to help offset the costs associated for the meets. For example, North Carolina officials receive roughly $500 for national meets, but this is nowhere near the amount required to pay for the trip, which can easily soar to exceed $1,000.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Photo Courtesy:\u00a0Peter H. Bick<\/p><\/div>\n

How often at a swim meet are there one or two officials watching over an entire eight- or 10-lane pool? Too often. The USA Swimming website has a presentation<\/a> for the recruitment and retention of officials.\u00a0This slideshow focuses on the personal benefits of officiating, including an improved knowledge of the sport and creating friendships that last a lifetime. While this may be true, a little money for these people who volunteer so much time and effort would really show our gratitude and aid with both recruiting and retaining officials. They deserve so much more gratitude than a hospitality tent or a drink cart passing by their lane.<\/p>\n

The process to becoming an official<\/a> is not easy and requires a great deal of time and energy. Officials must pay out of pocket to take classes to get their certifications, and this process continues at every stage of officiating. If someone knew they were going to get paid, there would be a higher participation because it wouldn\u2019t be coming out of pocket. If nothing else, officials should not have to pay for their training, especially with all the energy they will give to their sport.<\/p>\n

It would be no small task to make a nationwide change in officiating culture, but it is absolutely possible. Increasing swimmer fees by as little as a few dollars could greatly enhance the experience for our officials, the pillars of the swimming community. It is truly amazing how well the system works now, with little to no compensation to the officials, but with it, so much more could be achieved.<\/p>\n

The single largest problem faced by LSCs is recruiting and retaining officials. Let’s make a change in this and compensate our hard-working officials so their unofficial motto no longer has to be “We work for food.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alex Labonge, Swimming World Intern Imagine standing behind the starting blocks, waiting to begin a race. \u00a0Who is the last person that you see, only a few feet away,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":131691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[31469,53814,53815,1810,142,2690],"class_list":["post-150719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-alex-labonge","tag-jim-holcomb","tag-national-officials-committee","tag-official","tag-swimming","tag-usa-swimming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nShouldn't Swimming 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