Steve Parrill - Chair of Southern Refs
by Tom Crosby

Deep South Rugby’s very own Steve Parrill was recently chosen Chairman of the Southern Referee Association.

Steve began playing rugby at Southeastern Louisiana University in 1982. He played for the Hammond Black Lions while they were in existence and then for New Orleans RFC. He began refereeing full time around 2001/2002 and became chairman of the Deep South Referee Society when Alastair Twaddle left in 2003/04. He is a licensed IRB Trainer and Educator for USA Rugby and currently serves on the training committiee for USA Rugby. He is certified to teach the various courses offered by the IRB and also to train educators who teach those classes. He is a B3 territorial referee for the South. (See below for more information on the new referee grading system.)

His recent selection as Chairman of the Southern Referee Association  includes responsibility for the Deep South Society, Florida and SEERS, which is the rest of the south except for Tennessee.

Alex Sharland will replace Steve as  Chair of the Deep South Referees Association.

What follows is the new grading system for referees in the United States.
 
The grading system for referees in the United States has just changed going into this year.
The new system:
The grades of D, C3, C2 and C1 will now be called L4, L3, L2 and L1 (which stands for Local). And all the B grades (B3, B2, and B1) will all collapse into one combined T Panel grade. (This stands for Territorial)

The progression for referees will now be:
Local - L4 to L3 to L2 to L1 to
Territorial - T panel to
National - National Focus Group to National Panel to International Panel.
 
The system for T Panel refs will use just a number for the match (just like the old evaluation system) but there will be no grade. It will be expected that a new T panel ref will have lower scores than a referee who is about to be promoted to the USA FG or National panel. Likewise, a T panel referee who is getting older and nearing the end of their refereeing career would be expected to score low and even score below grade for a T Panel. This would lead to the referee being moved to a L1 if they wanted to continue to be a competitive referee, or they would be given the option of taking a Directors grade of T Panel and being moved to a non competitive category.
 
The evaluation manual has been changed to reflect this new T Panel grade and the competences in the Tackle, Ruck, Communication and Control elements has been merged together. Some of the B3 competences have been pushed down to L1 (Old C1).