Lake County Athletic Officials Association
February Board Meeting
Monday, February23, 2015
Agenda
Minutes prepared by: Andy Simpson, Secretary of LCAOA
6:57 pm – Meeting called to order by Fred Scheub, President of LCAOA
6:40pm--January 11, 2015 LCAOA board meeting minutes presented to the board by Andy Simpson for approval. Steve Kline made motion to accept, Mike Mendoza second. Approved 11 – 0.
Treasurer Report:
Ending balance $11,144.58. Jeff Nix made motion to accept, Steve Kline second Approved 11 – 0. Full report available from James by request.
Secretary Report:
ISHOLA meeting scheduled on February was cancelled due to weather. Rescheduled for March 29th day after boys state finals. I will be attending and giving a presentation for “Hosting officials” or “Management Guide for Basketball Contest Officials” document which I am involved in and wrote which could be accepted for use throughout the state. Also while serving on the Awards / Recognition / Media / Public Relations Committee the group published and the IHSAA accepted a “Media Release” form to be use when communicating with newspapers, radio, etc. community projects, state final official’s and any other information we felt necessary to publish.
Discussed “Official of the year” applications, all groups have sent me their nominations for each sport. I will have also requested professionalism nominations from each sport. I will start the research this week to ensure all persons involved meet requirements for said promotion.
IHSAA Summit is scheduled for July 18-19. Golf outing on 18th followed by summit on 19th. I will publish more information on LCAOA face-book page and arbiter home page.
Recruitment fair attendance was 77 people. Low number compared to 2013 but we feel the better economy and the weather kept folks away. But we feel we have some quality people that will become officials so the effort and time put into it was worth it.
Andy Simpson will be running for re-election for Secretary of the LCAOA. There is plenty more work to do for our association down state with several good things in the works for the committee our secretary represents on the ISHOLA board.
Football Report:
Mark Terry was not present due to work issues but did submit this report read by Andy Simpson. Official of the year nomination for football is Barry Poole nominated by Mark Terry football chairman. Football assigning with 2 open games needing to be filled the first week of October with no open crews in LCAOA. If we cannot fill them we will go outside the membership to fill our contractual obligation to assign officials. JV and freshman game scheduling has started with middle school assigning 95% complete. Certification plans are being made at this time. Location is yet to be determined but we are attempting to work with Morton high school on July 18th if logistics and time fit.
Official’s recruitment fair had 13 people interested in becoming a football officials. Mark will follow-up with these people to help guide them through the process of becoming IHSAA football officials if needed.
Football “Hatch Class” is tentatively schedule for April or May with part 1 test open in June. Hatch class participants will be working some at the Highland Scrimmages to get early on field experience.
Volleyball Report:
Official of the year nomination for Volleyball is Fred Scheub nominated by Deb Glassand Steve Kline. Steve Kline has sent out a follow-up letter from the recruitment fair to interested parties. Hoping to get some good replies and new officials. Deb has completed most varsity scheduling with the exception of Andrean, Morton, EC, Hebron and Marquette. Freshman scheduling will start soon. There was one VB official who blocked all Hammond schools in arbiter. FYI only!
Certification program is being worked on now for next season. Concerns with video assistance may become an issue. Looking for possible help in this area when certification clinic comes up. Andy Simpson suggestion was it does not need to be a volleyball person to run the camera. We can recruit basketball, football or any other sport who would like to pitch in and help out. We could send out an S.O.S. on the arbiter and look for volunteers.
Basketball Report:
Official of the year nominations for Girls: Andy Simpson / Boys: Doug Greenlee nominated by Jeff Nix Basketball Chairman. Jeff Nix will be running for basketball chairman this year.
Girl’s tournament LCAOA had 61 sectional officials of which 18 of them were numbers one’s. It would have been higher but others who worked state finals and could not advance were placed lower. LCAOA has 5 at semi-state with 4 possible for state finals.
Basketball has had an interesting season with some of the extracurricular activities concerning sportsmanship and social media policies.
Meeting attendance averaged 40 officials, numbers decline towards last two meetings due to meeting requirement being met by most officials. Assigning for next year. KV (Doug Greenlee) has schedule in and ready to assign.
AD meeting coming up with the GACC. If conditions are not improved in schools for officials the contract might not be in jeopardy. Continuing discussions amongst board members prior to the meeting will determine the route the LCAOA will take during negotiations.
Softball Report:
Official of the year nomination for softball is TJ DeGiulio nominated by Michelle LaFreniere and Greg Ramos.
Michelle has scheduled 1098 slots with 81 remaining. We have 5 new officials taking the softball test to become umpires.
Baseball Report:
Mike Mendoza will again be running for baseball chairman. David Slupczynski is on the ballot as well.
All varsity games are scheduled. Lower level games to be scheduled. Again the discussion of David Slupczynski and unfair scheduling acts. The board finds this is not a fair account of events leading up to his complaint. David had several restrictions on his arbiter with built in mileage restrictions. Andy Simpson attempted to investigate this long standing debate and offered a sit down meeting with BB assigners and David. Meeting date yet to be determined. All parties involved are willing to sit and hopefully come to some kind of resolution. This maybe a simple account of misunderstanding the arbiter system. More to come as the events unfold. Mike Mendoza gave a very well detailed explanation of issues David had in his arbiter account. E.I.: David removed the mileage restrictions but when they went into assign David more games the mileage restriction was back in place. As of now this complaint has been handled and we see no violations from the assigners. Follow-up to come if the meeting materializes.
Mike, Art and Todd have a possibility of acquiring 10 new umpires into the association. This is great news for the baseball program.
Soccer Report:
No representation but Bob Filepek did communicate 2 people worked the state finals this year. Armando Garcia worked 2A girls while Branko Jasnic worked boys 2A. Official of the year nomination from soccer is Armando Garcia, Nominated by Bob Filepek and Andy Simpson.
Other Sports (Swim, Track, and Cross): Swimming had 2 people work the state finals this year. Bob Dennis as starter and Ray Robinson in diving. Official’s recruitment fair had 4 people interested in becoming a swim official. Ray will follow-up with these people to help guide them through the process of becoming IHSAA swim officials.
Committees
Scholarship:
All scholarship information and forms are now on the arbiter web site. A link has been provided for easier access to printing the form.
Hall of Fame:
HOF Fame jackets have been ordered and paid for by Treasure James Turturillo in full. Hall of fame family members have been notified and invited to attend.
By-Laws
No changes in by-laws. Andy Simpson and Steve Kline will review them in the next 2 months and report back to the board with any recommendations or comments.
Old Business
Officials Expo – Andy Simpson reported number of 63 potential new officials attended the fair. Andy is to obtain the list of potential officials and send it to all board members for follow-up contact. A special thank you to Janis Qualliza and her staff at Merrillville high school for hosting the event and Ms. Walters from the IHSAA for attending in such bad weather.
Sports Chairs – Nominations for Official of the Year have been handed in. Andy Simpson will start making calls and sending form to the nominees. Professionalism recommendations have also been sent to Andy Simpson for research to ensure they qualify for professional status.
New Business:
Annual Business Meeting
Board Positions – Do we want to make Soccer a board position or appoint one until the following season when the by-laws can be revised to do so after voted on by the membership and do we keep 2 At-Large positions when we do so? Jeff Nix commented that an association as with 400 + members needs the 2 At-Large members. Andy Simpson also stated that the odd number of board members is good for voting purposes. This item has been tabled until further thought can go into the issue.
Don Koester is nominated for the Indiana Hall of Fame. The board has approved a $100.00 quarter page acknowledgement add in the HOF meeting broche. Jeff Nix made motion to accept Kim Yelich 2nd motion passed.
Banquet – Are we prepared for the event? Kim has secured and confirmed Teibel’s for April 18th. We will send out a mass e-mail and information on Arbiter in the early March to notify membership of event.
Dutch Kramer Award: Discussed and tabled until further discussions can be made. Kim Yelich to check on member attendance!
Werkowski Award: Kim checking on
Assignor’s Meeting: Andy Simpson to contact Sandra Walter via e-mail and discuss assigner attendance. Andy will report back to board with Ms. Walter’s reply.
ISHOLA Meeting: Changed to March 29th due to weather issues. Andy Simpson attending and will discuss with Ms. Walter several issues brought up by sports chairman. Due process of discipline for social media issues, breaking ethical by-laws, eta. Can we take games away we assign if board decides to? Also concussion protection helmet used by Girl’s Wheeler player. NCAA disallows it, federation’s stance and the IHSAA stance for next season?
Tom Bainbridge will contact Walsh family and attempt to get HOF acceptance speech of Ted in 2014. Andy Simpson would like to use it during the annual 2015 IHSAA officials’ summit.
Hall Of Fame 2015: Andy Simpson made a suggestion that we film the HOF acceptance speeches from each new inductees to the hall. This will serve our membership in the future well when looking back in 25 years. We have struggled with gathering history of our fore-fathers there is no reason why we can’t start collecting information and properly storing it for future generations after us.
For the good of the order
Motion to Adjourn made by Steve Kline and 2nd by Jeff Nix at 9:08 pm