Sheryl Lepisto of Maryland Swimming is the latest recipient of the Maxwell Excellence Award for her contributions to local swim officiating. Congratulations to Sheryl for being named to join the list of Maxwell recipients and thanks to her for her tireless work for swimmers in Maryland and USA Swimming. To learn more about the Maxwell Excellence Award, click here.

Sectional Meets

We are in the midst of sectionals around the country. Good luck to all the swimmers and to the officials who have volunteered to work at these meets to provide the best opportunities for our swimmers to succeed. To see the schedule of sectional meets, click here.

Official’s Picture Gallery

We have two additions to the official’s picture gallery: 2005 US Open in Auburn, AL and the 2006 World Cup meet in Long Island, NY. To see the gallery and look for faces you recognize, click here. If you have officials pictures from your sectional or zone all-star meets, please send them to onthesamepage@optonline.net and include information about the meet. We’ll try to get them posted to our gallery.

National Certification Program

The last of the certification cards for the national certification program went in the mail last week. In addition, there have been some updates and adjustments to the national certification program including the following:

1. At least one session of evaluation as a Stroke and Turn Judge is required to recertify at the N2 or N3 level in any other position. The one S&T evaluation can serve for all other positions.

2. Only one evaluation over 4 sessions at an Officials Qualifying Meet is now required as part of the advancement requirements to N3 Stroke and Turn Judge. All other requirements still apply, including working at least 4 sessions at another Officials Qualifying Meet (could be evaluated for another position) in the 24 months before the application is submitted.

In addition, we’ve added an Excel version of the Officials Qualifying Meet Report and a "Request for Evaluation" master form for use by meet administrators along with instructions on how it may be used. To see information and documents for the program, click here.

Breaststroke Interpretation

Further clarification related to the breaststroke rule has been issued by Bruce Stratton, Chair of the Rules & Regulations Committee. To go to the Rules & Regulations page to see this document as well as the full rule book and all interpretations previously issued, click here.

Officials Briefing Document

The USA Swimming Officials Committee has issued and updated the officials briefing document. It can be found under Training Resources on the “On the Same Page” web site or by clicking here.

Our Kids Initiative (OKI)

The latest update of the technical rules differences between the various governing bodies of Swimming has been posted to the web site. Click here to see the comparison page. To see the section of the site that contains all OKI information, click here.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments for the publishers of this newsletter or for the USA Swimming Officials Committee, we can be contacted via e-mail at onthesamepage@optonline.net. To go to the On the Same Page web site, click here.