MESSAGE FROM THE
PRESIDENT:
I hope you all had a
great Thanksgiving. As you all should know, I am a big advocate of this web
site. Gary Cahen has done a wonderful job, and I hope you all are beginning to
trust it for training, announcements and other information.
With football ending and
basketball beginning, I think this is a great time to give you all an update on
issues involving the CFOA. Because it is really easy to organize it this way
welcome to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.
First, THE GOOD:
1.
We had two great inaugural
meetings for football and basketball.
If you were in
Cocoa you know our field clinic and beach weekend was one of the best ones we
have ever had. Mike Goodspeed, Frank Scaletta, Mitch Fazzio, Roland Taylor and
many many more made our field clinic not only one of the largest ever in
attendance, it was also one of the better taught ones I can remember.
The rest of
the weekend was wonderful and gave many of us and our families a chance to
reunite and get ready for the football season. Good job Mike and everyone else
that gave up their time to make the weekend successful.
2. The football in
Central Florida has become big-time. The teams have become more skilled (not
that the coaches are better with the rules) and the gap between the worst teams
and the best teams is narrowing. For the first time, football officials could
consult their Manuals and training materials on CFOA.com. It’s only going to
get better.
3. The basketball
meeting at Edgewater High School was excellent. Horace Cannady and all those
that helped should be congratulated. The meeting was very informative, well
attended and provided a lot of very good information to the officials that
attended. Denarvis Thorton and Shanell Young came to our meeting and provided
incredibly valuable insight into what is expected of us as officials in the
FHSAA. I tried to use the occasion to speak to the issue of unity in the CFOA.
It is time to put the personal preferences behind the needs of the CFOA. The
CFOA is bigger than any one of us or any group of us and it is time to
acknowledge that and actually do something about it (more on that later).
4. If you
officiated football, you know most of the referees passed out announcements for
the game announcers to read for recruiting. For those that do not know, we had
announcements at area football games inviting people to check us out if they
wanted to find out more about becoming an official. Those that were interested
were referred to CFOA.com. During the height of the announcements, we were
getting more than one referral per day. Since we started making the
announcement in late August, we are closing in on 100 new referrals. This has
been by far our most successful recruiting effort and because of the use of the
internet, this will only get better.
5. Here is one of
the reasons why recruiting will only get better. Bob Gosslin has acquired
FOR FREE the services of a public relations firm that is going to work on a
video that will be for recruiting and will be something a potentially new
official can look at when he/she comes to CFOA.com. This will be cool.
Although Bob has a face made for radio, he is very talented in matters such as
these, and this will really help get new people.
6. This is our
60th YEAR!!!! That’s older than most of us (including me)! We
are going to have a Hall of Fame. Cary Fields (who should be in it) is starting
the process. We are going to start a new tradition with the Hall of Fame
Banquet. Other than the annual meeting which is not well attended, this is the
only time for all of us, basketball, football, flag football . . . ALL OF US
to come together FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER. SO YOU NEED TO PLAN TO
COME. It may cost something, but you can afford it. A 60 year old
organization like this should have more tradition than we do. We need to pay
attention to those that got us here. We need a night with no controversy. We
need a night just to be together in the same room and to enjoy a meal and a
drink together. We need to respect our past. We are in the process of booking
the banquet now, plan on late March or April. PLAN ON THIS!! OK??
NOW THE BAD:
Unfortunately, there is
some bad:
I know that football and
basketball are different These problems simply do not exist in football to the
extent they seem to occur and reoccur in basketball.
1. Our member
schools simply cannot get a grip on their schedules. Their inability to submit
a firm schedule has grown to epidemic proportions. Further, their inability to
communicate all of their changes promptly has left us scrambling many times to
cover games that were not sent to us. This is basically inexcusable because the
schools can check the schedule we have for them because they all have access to
the Arbiter system just for this purpose.
2. Never before
has the attitude of officials been so crucial. People, there simply is no room
for selfish behavior. As I told you at the meeting the first question you need
to ask is how what you do or say affects the CFOA. Quite frankly, what any one
of us is doing on his or her own behalf does not interest me in the least. I
care about the CFOA. My question to you (and you know who you are) is why don’t
you care more about the CFOA than yourself? Why are you more important than the
whole? Why aren’t you part of the solution instead of becoming the problem?
Here’s what
I’m talking about and these things ACTUALLY HAPPENED! During the first
week of games an official that was not assigned that night (IT’S THE FIRST
WEEK MIND YOU) is at a game and sees who is officiating the game and says
“why don’t I have a game if so and so does?” The selfishness of this question
is exceeded only by the absurdity of this kind of attitude.
On another
occasion, because of scheduling changes caused by the schools we had to
move people around. A veteran official was called and asked to go to a
different school. The school was Poinciana. He said he did not want to go
there because it was too far. What? Really?
There actually
is an attitude among some of us that they should have the best game of the
NIGHT EVERY NIGHT. This kind of attitude is not only bad it is a shame. It
is also destructive.
There are many
many problems with basketball booking most of which are caused by the schools.
One day last week one school sent in 18 changes. We had 40 changes in
one day. But there are other problems too. The scheduling is inequitable. We
rely too much on the computer and evaluations that need to be updated. Horace
has put together a wonderful group on the evaluation committee. They have
assured me they are going out to evaluate everyone who is not a beginning
official. If you want to be evaluated, check out the evaluation committee on
the web site. If you have a problem, check out the grievance procedure on the
web site.
Believe me we
are working to fix the “mechanical things” like evaluations. But only you can
change your attitude. If you don’t put the CFOA first then please either keep
quiet or become someone else’s problem. I know this is nothing new but we need
everyone’s help and your personal needs and wants are really no more or less
important than the next individual’s, but the CFOA is more important than all of
that. It is time for the individuals to become a part of the CFOA. Everyone
knows it is much easier to break one twig at a time than it is to break a
bundle.
THE UGLY:
The ugly is
not only ugly, it is pathetic. The ugly will be posted below and it concerns a
letter written by a coward to Shanell Young of the FHSAA. I call him a coward
because he sent the letter anonymously. That means he implicated us all even
though he says he isn’t speaking for the CFOA. I can assure you he is not. If
I find you out and I will expose you.
The emails,
the letter and my response is posted below.
I don’t want
to end with just the bad. We have never been in better shape financially. Our
numbers are on the rise for the first time in a while. We are a great group to
be around and this stuff is actually fun.
Basketball
officials, this is going to be a great year. Orlando is the center of the
universe in this state for basketball. Have a blast. Remember, you are
always part of the best team on the court.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Sincerely,
JEFF DEEN
CFOA PRESIDENT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Mr. Deen,
I have sat on this for a
few weeks now, but I wanted to share with you correspondence that I received
from one of your officials after I came and spoke to your group. I was very
shocked and dismayed at the contents of the letter. I thought and still do
think that the FHSAA and the CFOA has a great working relationship, and for
someone out of your association to write this letter to me and all that was
copied on it was disheartening. Since there was not a return address, nor did
the person sign it, I could not answer the charges that they alleged. You may
do with this whatever you chose, I will drop the subject once I send this
email. I have also CC’d Mr. Cannady, because he was so nice to invite both Mr.
Thornton and myself to your meeting.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
----
Shanell Young
Director of Athletics
352-372-9551 ext.310
MS. YOUNG
Thanks for
sending me this letter to you. Like every organization we have our share of
cowards and malcontents. The one thing in this ridiculous rant I agree with is
that HE DOES NOT SPEAK FOR THE CFOA PERIOD .Because this person chose to be
anonymous I understand why you would be concerned and let me assure you that
NOTHING you said is either offensive to or incompatible with the goals of the
CFOA .OBVIOUSLY YOU CAN SEE BY THE CONTENT OF OUR COMMITEES AND OUR LEADERSHIP
WE AGREE WITH YOU. SO PLEASE JUDGE US BY HOW WE HAVE ACTED AND WILL CONTINUE TO
ACT AND NOT BY THE WORDS OF A MALCONTENT AND COWARD WHO DOESN'T THINK ENOUGH OF
HIS OWN OPINION TO SIGN HIS NAME. Now speaking personally, it seems that you are
too kind and too professional to say this but I'll say it to you instead. I'm
offended by this" veteran official" on so many levels that if I can ever find
out who it is I will do my best to suspend him, expose him and confront him
myself. This creep sent an anonymous letter and by doing so showed his disregard
for the CFOA because by being anonymous he implicated all of us. Unfortunately,
there apparently still exists a particular type of person that harbors thoughts
such as this but is willing to be so selfish and cowardly that to make his point
he would rather implicate this wonderful organization, the great majority of
which are fine and moral men and women that do this for the love of sport and
for the athletes, than to stand by his opinion by simply signing his name, no
matter how backward and ignorant his opinion might be in the end. After all, if
he felt strongly enough about his opinion to write you in the first place then
he could have done us all the courtesy of signing his name.
For the CFOA
let me apologize for the coward because he did not sign his name, let me
apologize for the time you spent thinking about this and let me wish you a happy
thanksgiving. I hope you can tell from the tenor and tone of this response that
as president of the CFOA, personally I will not condone this attitude and
neither will our membership. But not only that, we and I will take whatever
measures that become available to me to do as I said I would, should this
coward ever be exposed.
hope to see
you all soon, you are welcome here anytime
JEFF DEEN CFOA
PRESIDENT
