Five Questions With: Pati Rolf – International ref, Director of Officials Development at USAV
Monday, December 21st, 2020
Pati Rolf’s background:
* Former Badger Region Board member, coach and official
* International referee
* Former collegiate coach at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, East Carolina and Marquette
* Director of Officials Development at USA Volleyball
(Due to technical difficulties, a video of the interview is not available for this five questions with)
* You were a longtime collegiate coach; what are some of the things coaching taught you about officiating? Do you miss coaching? Do you consider yourself a better official or coach?
I totally miss coaching. I totally miss playing. But while I am reffing and working with officials, that is a kind of coaching. I am coaching still just not working with the age groups like that of young people or college kids. I just got an email from an official in Europe and I offered feedback to him on something that he is working on. Coaching is all about feedback, and I am doing that as much as I can just with a different group of individuals.
* How has traveling the world to officiate internationally changed you? How do you handle the language barriers that arise at times?
The element of compassion for others – when you travel and you see the world you really get an understanding of empathy and sympathy for the hardships that are happening in other countries. The good things and the struggles they have. You can’t not be friends with my counterparts in other countries. These people are my buddies and my teammates when I am officiating internationally. Traveling the world internationally opens up the ability to make new friends and really appreciating new cultures, foods and lives. When you’ve got friends in other countries, you’re not interested in having war with other countries. You’re interested in peaceful process. My friends aren’t just in Wisconsin or Colorado, they’re around the world. When you travel the world, it’s about the people that you are meeting. I have an incredible appreciation for what I have because I see what the other countries have or don’t have.
* What is your mindset when you officiate an international match vs. officiating a girls 14s match at a local event?
I am all about friendly relations. It’s the core of everything we do. Everything we do is a message on how we treat each other. No matter what our political view may be. No matter if I am doing Special Olympics, a Badger Region event or over to Europe or a World Championship, I am there to do the best job I can and help my partner. I am a competitive person, but over the years I have been able to tamp that down. Everyone has an ego, and I think I’ve learned to keep that under control. My goal when I travel is to make sure the people I work with know that the people in America are generous people. Regardless of the match, I work to make sure people know that I am there to make them feel comfortable. I’m there to build a strong team.
* Who were your mentors and what were the most influential things they taught you? And when you are mentoring other officials, what are some of the big picture things you find yourself telling future high-level officials the most?
I’ve got a lot of mentors. I’ve been reffing 40 years. That is a frightening number. One is Alexander “Sandy” Steel. He’s an incredibly generous man. You’d think after me emailing him so many years that he would think that I am a ding dong, but he never says, “Pati, you should know that.” Doug Wilson and Tom Blue were big mentors for me. Neil Luebke from the Badger Region was an incredible mentor. Julie Voeck was a teammate but she was a mentor for me, too. She mentors me with her behavior. She’s so generous. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of amazing mentors. I’ve had kids mentor me. During a match one time, I made a statement along the lines of “That’s life. Let’s move on.” And the girl came over to me and said, “That’s life? This is what we do for a living. This is the most important thing to me.” And I apologized and told myself I would never make that statement again. Mentors come in a lot of different ways. They can be a coach, someone you are working with or a player – anyone who teaches you how to do a better job. I like to ask officials “What do you think you need improve on?” There are no such things as weaknesses, just things we need to work on. People will say, “I am not good enough.” But nobody is good enough. Not until they work on it. You get better by doing it. Mistakes have a negative connotation to it. You just did something and it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. But it actually went the way that it should have gone. You’re learning by making mistakes. You’re experimenting. For officials that means getting ahead of the ball and looking at a setter’s hands (before they set) or how not to react to a player’s behavior when they come after you. How you stay calm and control your thinking. It’s an issue of practice. If everything went perfectly, we’d be living like the Stepford Wives and Husbands. We’d be living in a weird society where everybody is perfect.
* How do you handle being a female in a male-dominated profession? What would you say to other women (of all ages) thinking about following in your footsteps?
Women are horribly under-represented in the world as FIVB officials and coaches. And not to mention in administration. I’m only a ref because I was a player and then I was a coach. I transitioned. A lot of our female players aren’t transitioning to coaching and reffing after playing. How come they aren’t transitioning? It doesn’t make sense. If the kids only know how much money they could be making. If a kid knew they could pull in $1,000 at a qualifier, they’d be like, “oh, my gosh.” My goal right now is recruiting. We are focusing on our Regions and we are promoting from the Regions the young people officiating. That is a major push in 2021. Then the next thing is retaining them. Then we are trying to get more people on the world state — women in particular. We have 350,000 young women playing volleyball as children. But at the age of 18, many of them seem to disappear. And they aren’t necessarily going on to coach or officiate.
