Hello parents,

 

We host many meets here in Tupelo, and one way you can help is by becoming certified as an official! You need a total of 4 supervised sessions across 2 different meets after passing the initial online test. If you sit down and do it, it should only take 2-4 hours. You can stop at any time and resume at any time.

 

Follow these steps:

Log into your USA Swimming account

Click on the education tab in the top right hand corner

Click on the Course catalog tab

Click on the Officials bubble - stay on the ALL TAB

 

Here you should find these 3 things: Background check, Athlete protection training, and concussion protocol training. These are required to be any form of USA Swimming certified official.

 

You have two options to begin with: Stroke/Turn official or Admin official. In order to get to be a starter or meet ref, you must complete the Stroke/Turn official certification. Scroll down until you see a course that says "Stroke and Turn Certification Course." Once you pass this class, you are free to get supervised sessions at your discretion and after the meet ref has signed off on 4 supervised sessions over at least 2 different meets, you will become a certified official!

 

You must be certified as a stroke/turn official for 3 months before beginning your Starter test.

You must be certified as both a stroke/turn and starter before taking your meet ref test.

I have attached the qualifications to this email so you can look over them yourself.

 

The admin official runs the computers in the back. They are in control of all of the times, lane assignments, etc. when it comes to meets. With how swim meets are run today, you must be level headed and calm under pressure. You do not need to be a stroke/turn official first.

 

We can have multiple officials of all standards on our team. We are not locked into having one official here and one official there. In order to be completely self-sufficient, we need a couple in each category so we can have meet's whenever we please.

 

Ashley Martin ( [email protected]) is our team's current meet referee. She can inform you on anything you want to know about what being an official is really like and all the benefits it may bring.

 

Nancy Leigh McDade ( [email protected]) is the meet referee next weekend. She has lived in Tupelo most of her life and has had 2 boys come through Shock Wave. She is another great resource to utilize in trying to understand the realm of USA Swimming officiating. 

 

Tammy Chapman ( [email protected]) is our team's current Admin referee. She can also inform you on how the administrative side of running a meet works.