By Kurt Klier, Assistant Director of Cole Fieldhouse and Reckord Armory at the University of Maryland-College Park
As Valentine’s Day approaches, NIRSA members are anxiously waiting to see which NIRSA Championship Series committee or work team they’ll be assigned to. This year, over 180 applications were submitted for various volunteer positions within the Series—I can really feel the love and just wish we had positions for everyone! The good news is that even if you’re not selected to serve on a work team there are still many fantastic volunteer opportunities within the Series. So don’t give up if you’re not selected; I encourage you to try to volunteer with the Series another way.
Wrapping up 2015 flag football
Volunteers of all kinds are what helped make the 2015 NIRSA Championship Series National Flag Football Tournament a huge success. I want to thank the University of West Florida’s Jeff Schmitt, Associate Director of Recreation and Athletic Facilities, and Jessica Coleman, Competitive Sports Coordinator, as well as the entire UWF community for hosting and running a great event. I also want to give a shout-out to Tournament Co-Director Brian Mills from the University of Houston; Director of Competition Brad Whittaker from Indiana University; Director of the All-Tournament Committee Sarah Fain from Georgia Southern University; and Director of Officials Dr. Bradley Petty from Angelo State University. And, finally, thank you to all the other volunteers who came to work the tournament. All in all we had 65 teams, 790 participants, 19 states represented, 60 student officials, 45 tournament staff, 18 University of West Florida staff, and 53 institutions represented by staff and officials—now that is a lot of love!
The love even extended beyond Pensacola through all different kinds of social media channels. According to Scott Flickinger—Director of Intramural Sports at Cornell University and Chair of the NIRSA Championship Series Brand Management Work Team—“We had 258 total tweets during the four-day flag football tournament last year. This year, we had 286 on just the last day of the tournament, and almost 500 tweets over the course of the same four-day period.” The NIRSA National Flag Football Championships saw 568 retweets for an average of 142 retweets per day during the event. The championship games were streamed live and nearly 1,000 people watched the games—256 streamed the Co-Rec Division game, 243 streamed the Women’s Division game, and 392 streamed the Men’s Division game. Even after the tournament was wrapped up, there were over 300 on-demand views of championship games.
Getting ready for 2016 basketball
In just a few weeks, the 2016 season of NIRSA Championship Series basketball will tip off, offering players and volunteers some premier development opportunities. This year, at the national tournament hosted by The Ohio State University from April 22–24, the continued development and improvement of the “Train the Trainer” program will no doubt stand out as a highlight. According to Dave Gaskins, retired from East Carolina University, “we will be fully implementing the ‘Train-the-Trainer’ component during the Officials Clinic for individuals who will be a part of our Friday clinic along with some specialized sessions for individuals who administer and train basketball officials.” This program will help members learn best practices related to officials training. Dave and Shane Land, Co-Director of Officials and Assistant Director of Intramural Sports at the University of Central Florida, have assembled an all-star cast of clinicians and evaluators. From the high school ranks to the professional, all levels of basketball will be represented in Columbus.
Promoting officials’ development
The development that takes place at Championship Series events has been the topic of much discussion and so NIRSA, through the leadership of the NIRSA Championship Series Committee, recently conducted an environmental scan of its 650+ member institutions to learn more about the scope of student officials’ development on their campuses. Jennifer Rezac, President of the Referee Training Academy, says that NIRSA will “use the responses as the baseline for the size, staying power, reach, value, and challenges around officials’ development on campuses.”
“The presence of intentional officials’ development for students at NIRSA tournaments dates back to the late 1970s,” Jennifer explains. “The National Invitational Flag Football Championships—hosted for many years at the University of New Orleans—were among the first extramural competitions to assemble the best and brightest officials, teams, and officials’ development personnel for an intense, developmental experience spanning a short number of days. It’s a format that accelerates valuable and memorable training.”
She goes on to say that “these events result in participating officials returning to their campuses with the culture they’ve experienced, and help participants to advance the abilities of others within their institution.” Like so many Championship Series initiative and events, intentional officials’ development is helping to spread the love. The future holds so many great possibilities for the Championship Series, and I know the results of the environmental scan will play a role in helping decide our next move.
There is a lot of love surrounding the Championship Series. Whether you’re a volunteer working an event, an athlete participating in it, or a student official developing your skills, the NIRSA Championship Series is only as strong as those who involve themselves with it.
