The Battle Cry For Consistency--And The Need To Have It On Both Sides

One of the most common refrains we hear from collegiate coaches is that they just want CONSISTENCY from their officials--and its a valid refrain and one that everyone wants and strives for on a daily basis.  On-court training and experience are the key elements in finding consistency but it will be an elusive goal as long as we are humans and have different perspectives.  But just because it is elusive doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for it every day...

The one area that we could achieve more consistency--and one that is needed now and not later--is in the area of match formats in the ITA.

Seems now that some conferences have chosen to abandon the new format as has the NCAA for the championships at the end of the year.  Before every match, we officials have to check with the coaches to see which format they are going to follow, if we are playing "clinch-clinch" or some variation thereof, or just what we are going to be doing.  Nothing drives us officials to desperation quicker than this indecision.  In a recent match we were told that we were doing "clinch" in the doubles unless they were close matches, and "clinch" in the singles unless the #1 and #3 players were still involved.  Want to come try to figure that one out???

I did a collegiate match yesterday and both coaches had been told by their conferences and athletic directors to go back to the "old format" and "regular" rules for the dual match.  Unfortunately, noone explained what all this means to their players because when they arrived at court and were told to go back to the regular format and scorekeeping they had no idea what we were talking about.  You should listen to a Russian player trying to explain to his South American teammate what "regular" scoring means.  I should have recorded a video and put it on You Tube...

Personally, I think that if the NCAA and everyone concerned in the decision making process is looking for shorter matches and hopefully some television time, they need to stay with the new format.  Every collegiate match I have done this spring has finished in well under 2 hours but with the old format yesterday, the match took 4 hours and 10 minutes.  ESPN will be out the door when they know that...

I like the new format but I also liked the old format but its time for everyone to get on the same ship.  We're sinking fast with all this indecision...