Evaluating officials just became easier for coaches.

In the past, coaches had to fill a form and mail it to the Arizona Interscholastic Association. But coaches can now grade the work of the AIA’s referees via their school log in site.  

The new evaluation option became available on Tuesday for basketball and soccer coaches.

“It was a cumbersome way of doing it (mailing in the evaluation) in the past, and we weren’t getting the responses I wanted to see,” said Gary Whelchel, the AIA’s “The website will make it quicker to get information to us regarding our varsity level officials.”

Officials shouldn’t feel threatened by the new tool coaches have to assess their work, Whelchel added.

Whelchel also receives positive feedback from coaches.

“To be honest we have received a lot of great information from coaches as well,” Whelchel said. “We’ve received emails about the exceptional work about officials who have gone above and beyond to be fair and call a good game.

“We are not using this new form to downgrade them (officials) or blackball them. We are just using it to get more information on how they are doing.”

New form

If coaches don’t know their login information, they can get it from their athletic director or secretary.

Once they log in, coaches can then click on the “games” link, which will list all of their regular season games, to get to the “review officials” link.

Here’s the form the coaches will fill and then submit to Whelchel’s department: