Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 12/25/08
The Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) Associate Executive Director Robert A. Lombardi, in conjunction with four other NCAA Division II and III conferences, announced the initiation of a program to recruit referees for women’s and men’s lacrosse.
The program is called the START program. It stands for Students of Today are Referees of Tomorrow, with a goal of recruiting new officials in all sports on the collegiate campuses as well as increasing opportunities for scholastic officials to advance to the intercollegiate level.
Member institutions of these conferences will be offering classes to become a registered sports’ official with PIAA or their sister association in each member institution’s respective state throughout the Middle Atlantic Region.
Working in conjunction with the CSAC and the PIAA are the commissioners of the Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) along with Division III Capital Athletic Conference (CAC), Centennial Conference (CC), and Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Athletic Corporation (MAC). The SCAC was formerly the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference.
The initial courses are to be offered during the spring semester at several college campuses.
The pilot program offered by the Colonial States Athletic Conference will aim to recruit officials for baseball, softball, boys lacrosse and girls lacrosse on the first three Wednesdays of February, 2009 (2/4, 2/11 and 2/18).
The three sessions will run approximately 75 minutes, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at Cabrini College in Founder’s Hall (Rm. 358), Iadarola Center (Lecture Hall), Grace Hall (Board Room) and the Library (Conference Room). Although the program is primarily for students from any college or university, others interested in becoming scholastic, and potentially collegiate, officials are encourage to attend.
At the end of the third meeting, students with proper college ID will be offered the opportunity to take the PIAA officiating test for that sport free of charge. Non-students may take the PIAA test at the regular $30 fee.
Those that pass the test will be assisted in contacting local officiating chapters so they can begin officiating PIAA sanctioned events (and other intramural, youth or recreation league events) as soon as possible.
Other pilot programs are tentatively scheduled to be offered at Franklin & Marshall College (CC), York College (CAC), DeSales University (MAC) and Lock Haven University (PSAC).
For more information on the program, contact any of the following:
Colonial States Athletic Conference, Amy Friedman, afriedman@csacsports.org
Capital Athletic Conference, Tom Byrnes, tbyrnes@cacsports.com
Centennial Conference, Steve Ulrich, steve.ulrich@fandm.edu
Middle Atlantic Conferences, Ken Andrews, andrews@lvc.edu
Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, Steve Murray, SMurray@lhup.edu
PIAA contact: Dr. Robert A. Lombardi, rlombardi@piaa.org
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