The National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball all do it. Colleges do it as well.

Why not our local high schools?A proposal that may be enacted at the beginning of next year will implement a system in which Schuylkill League head coaches will evaluate officials in all varsity athletic events.Mike Hromyak, Tamaqua athletic director and chairman of the Schuylkill League Officials Committee, said the intent of the evaluation is to have a positive effect upon the overall experience of high school athletic competition."Our goal is to monitor performance, recognize excellence and suggest improvements where needed," said Hromyak.The professional leagues send evaluators to watch games or utilize video replay to assess the margin of error when it comes to officials making the correct calls. The Schuylkill League proposal, however, will focus more upon overall game management."Our checkpoints will consider the key elements of an official's control of the game in terms of the contest itself, the athletes, the coaches, and even the crowd," said Hromyak. "Of course, his or her knowledge of the game is a significant factor as well."Dan Rossino, a high school and college official of football, basketball and softball for more than 20 years says an evaluation system is long overdue."High school sports have evolved and officiating feedback is needed," said Rossino. "At the initial meeting, the presidents of several local officiating chapters as well as athletic directors from District 11 presented their views and the overall opinion was that the system should be constructive and informative. It should identify officials' strong points, and point out areas of their performance that could use some improvement."Those areas to be evaluated would include professional attitude, appearance, knowledge of the game and proper positioning to make calls."How do you get better if you don't know what you are doing wrong," said Rossino.Jim Thorpe girls basketball coach Rob Kovac has some reservations about coaches evaluating officials."As a coach, I'm not sure I'm qualified to evaluate an official's performance," he said. "I believe that most of them are trying to do the best job they can. Besides, I would not want the responsibility of knocking an official's performance and it turns out that he gets fewer assignments. I certainly wouldn't want him to evaluate my coaching."The issue of a coach evaluating an official after his team loses a close game that included a few questionable calls suggests the system may not always produce fair marks.Both Hromyak and Rossino contend that the 24-hour policy could address this issue. If a coach is emotionally distraught because of an official's calls, he can wait until the next day so he can complete the evaluation more objectively.Lehighton boys basketball coach Rich Oertner, along with Hromyak and Rossino, believes that those officials who score high marks should be assigned district playoff and championship games."I also think that we should evaluate our sub varsity officials too, so those who check out well can move up to do varsity games," said Oertner, who thinks that assigning three basketball officials for each game rather than two would be more effective so that each official has fewer responsibiliites."Some times, they cannot not be in a proper position to make a call," said Oertner. "Officiating basketball is more difficult than other sports because the officials have a split second to make or not to make a call. In football and in baseball, they have more time to think and decide."Hiring three officials for each basketball game is obviously more costly. Rossino, who presides over several officiating associations, would like to see the PIAA hire retired officials to evaluate those currently assigned, but that also would come at a cost to the districts."Coaches coach and officials officiate and that's how it should be. I'm aware of the cost factor, but it would be ideal if we have our own kind doing the evaluating," he said.Hromyak said that evaluations would be in place for all varsity sports, and that a long term average of scores would best tell how an official is doing."Obviously, all officials make mistakes, but this system would not single out individual games of poor performance, but would consider his body of work over a few weeks of time," he said. "The hope would be that officials will become more consistent in their overall performance. Pats on the back too will help officials' assigners to choose who would do the big games as well as the league and dstrict playoffs."Consistency is what Kovac and Oertner agree should be the ultimate goal.In games where one team is defeating another by a large margin, some officials will put away their whistles because they just want the game to end."It shouldn't matter what the score is," said Oertner. "Our athletes need to learn that the rules of their sport are enforced during each minute of every game."The implementation of an evaluation system would require that a coach fill out an online checklist."Although the league may ask for these evaluations on a voluntary basis, I would like to make it a requirement for my coaches at Tamaqua " says Hromyak. "I feel it's a valuable tool that will measure accountability, which in turn will better legitimize the results of our athletic contests."The bottom line appears to be clear about the purpose of an evaluation system. Just like the athletes under their management, with constructive criticism in hand, varsity officials can improve so they too will consistently perform at the top of their game.**********TIGERS BALANCED SCORING ... The Northwestern boys have received balanced scoring so far this season.In fact, in the Tigers first six games they've had a different leading scorer in every contest.From the first game on, the top point-producers have been: Josh Williamson (21 points in Game 1), Parker Jones (18 in Game 2), Taylor Breininger (12 in Game 3), Brady Mengel (16 in Game 4), Kevin Shuey (10 in Game 5) and Cam Richardson (16 in Game 6).**********BOMBERS WIN STREAK ... The Palmerton boys basketball team produced a three-game winning streak earlier this season when they defeated Northwestern, Panther Valley and Catasauqua.The last time the Blue Bomber boys won three straight games was near the start of the 2006-07 season. That squad, coached by Brian Minnich, produced consecutive victories against Bangor, Salisbury and Palisades.For a streak longer than three games, you have to go to the year prior to that. In that season (2005-06), Palmerton had a six-game winning streak.**********TRIBE'S THREE-POINT MAN ... Lehighton's Jordan Knappenberger had a night to remember against Pen Argyl on Dec. 13.In that contest, the Indian senior hit 10 three-pointers and finished the evening with 40 points.The 10 treys set a new single-game school record (breaking his own record of nine he set twice last season). He also helped the team finish with 14 in the game, tying the school's single game mark set on Feb. 19, 2014.Knappenberger also became just the second Lehighton player in 25 years to have 40 or more points in a game. The only other Indian to accomplish that in the last quarter-century was Joe Gower, who did it six times.**********ALWAYS DOUBLE DIGITS ... While the season is only about one-third over, there are just four players (two boys and two girls) from the Times News area that have scored double digits in every one of their team's games.Among the boys, Tamaqua's Bo Rottet and Weatherly's Luke Reiner have reached 10 or more points in every contest while the girls that have accomplished the feat include Jim Thorpe's Kayley Kovac and Palmerton's Jade Farquhar.**********BRUTTO'S BIG WIN ... The Marian girls basketball team opened its season on Dec. 5 by defeating Shamokin, 44-29. The Fillies' first win of 2014 marked head coach Paul Brutto's 500th career win during his remarkable 24-year tenure with the program. Brutto has led the Fillies to four state championship games, winning one PIAA Class A title in 2008.**********ONE GRAND ACCOMPLISHMENT ... Palmerton's Jade Farquhar recorded her 1,000th career point on Dec. 20 during a win against Pleasant Valley. The senior star is averaging 18 points per game and shooting just under 80 percent from the foul line through seven games this year. Farquhar is a big factor why the Lady Bombers are off to an impressive 6-1 start.