Officials Training & Education Blog

It is amazing that we are now down to the quarterfinals. The USA has done well and we have 3 beach teams left. Rogers and Dalhauser lost unexpectedly. We understand that Rogers hurt his hamstring. They were on my warm up court and I thought that they were taking more time to prepare their bodies …

It seems like it has been a long time since I got a moment to write. We have now worked 5 days in a row. It is far more physical than Sue and I expected.  They have a limit on the number of volunteers and the hours we could be scheduled to work. But once …

I got up this morning fully intending to go see some beach volleyball. Then I opened the window and the weather just didn’t scream “let’s go to the beach.” Just saw Dan Apol introduced on TV as a referee on the SUI-BRA match and he’s dressed in full rain gear. So I went to plan …

We have lost track of the days. Since the first day when we did not have to work, we have now worked 3 straight days and many hours. Today was supposed to be a day off but they have found that changes were needed. So Sue and I and the two Swiss women are now …

Greetings from London, and the Games of the XXX Olympiad. After all the meetings and trainings, it was great to enjoy an evening out at the Opening Ceremonies, for which we all received complimentary tickets. Volleyball is one of the few sports that runs the entire length of the games, so we will be able …

Let the games begin. Today was the first day of our official Olympic experience.  And on Sunday, the Tube does not run as early as usual so we had to take the train in order to arrive for our 7 am start time. That meant leaving the flat by 5:25 am.  When we got to …

Hey everybody! Still having fun, getting real into it now, the Beach Volleyball venue and play has been out of this world. Got to work my first match as the first referee today, #1 seed Brazil men’s, and in front of about 14,500 people, first few points were a little stressful, but exciting at that. …

How to describe the Olympics as a jury member – briefly, a lot of sitting, a lot of meetings and a lot of working with the organizers to get what the FIVB wants as the basic template for the matches and ironing out the usual wrinkles in things like transportation and shared responsibilities, followed by …

Thursday evening Sue and I got finished with work just before 9 pm. We were able to hustle over to the count down clock and see it turn over the 24 hour mark. With one day left, we spent our last few hours preparing the 2 warm up courts and center court for competition on …