Referee Trainining and Certification

[Moderator]

The Water Polo Academy has put together special three-course packages
designed to provide complete and comprehensive theoretical referee
training. These courses are ideal for referees who do not wish to
shoulder the expense (in time and dollars) to travel somewhere
(sometimes a long way from home) for the many hours of classroom
lecture contained in the traditional referee clinic. These courses
provide the student with the additional luxuries of being able to
access all this content 24/7 and from the convenience of home and/or
office. The content contains everything normally provided in full-
weekend courses (such as what used to be the complete 8+ hour clinic
run as part of the USA Water Polo certification process) plus many
new and modern features.

To access one of these discounted three-course packages, contact Dennis Lawrence (Southwest Zone), Russ Thompson (Northeast Zone) or Michael Goldenberg (Southeast Zone). Discount Codes are available from these 3 zone referee delegates at the price of $17.00 per course.

All other students are welcome at http://www.waterpoloacademy.com

Enrollment is limited, so the sooner a student enrolls, the greater
the likelihood of getting into the January courses. However, if
demand exceeds capacity, these three-course packages can and will be
offered again as soon as possible.

Each January Referee Module lasts for 6 days. Class schedules is as follows;

Introductory Referee: January 1
Intermediate Referee: (Minor Fouls) January 8
Intermediate Referee: (Major Fouls) January 14
Advanced Referee: (Advantage) January 20
Introductory Referee: January 26

As an additional note, referees taking the classes and passing the rules tests and on deck evaluations are automatically placed on the Water Polo Academy Certification list and are eligible for referee assignments via the free WPA Referee assigning service.

[polo man]

to whom does the academy provide referees?

[LABertocci]

to whom does the academy provide referees?

To any organizing body that elects to use this service (a service that costs the organizers nothing).

So far, at this point, there have been two organizing groups electing to use this service for referee assignments. I suspect that number will grow with time.

I do not expect, in my lifetime, for this service to supplant the well-established local organizing groups that do referee assignments all over the USA.

I do expect, THIS YEAR, for events using this service to have better refereed games than the same events had the previous year(s). The salient feature of this service is QA (quality assurance). There will be a tight and publicly visible linkage between the content being delivered to the referees, their ratings, their game and event pay, their game grades, and their performance. The past "secret society" mentality will not exist in this universe.

In these events, the players will play, the coaches will coach, and the referees will referee. And all events will have a non-, or no more than minimally whistling, Delegate/Evaluator. This person will be the on-site source of most of the QA.

I am putting my (figurative and literal) money where my mouth is in putting this system into place. It WILL work, and it WILL work well.