Graham Waters from Canada, the World Squash Federation's Rules and Referee Committee Director, presided over the six-hour Referee School that included a catered lunch. Fourteen students participated actively in wide-ranging discussions of the International Referee's Program, the Injury Rule, Rule 17 dealing with Conduct on Court, the Referee's Line of Thinking on Interference, the Importance of the Marker, the Referee's Phrasebook, and Stress Management for Referees. Two highlights of the school were a video presentation concerning Developing Consistency and a one-hour opportunity to interact with three top U.S. players: Shabana and Latasha Khan and Marty Clark addressing officiating from the elite athletes' perspective.
Rob Thompson, a National-level (formerly known as A-level) referee from England/Atlanta, conducted a well-received Rules Clinic for Players at the Concord/Acton Squash Club attended by 14 students. US Squash hopes to conduct a model Rules Clinic at every National Championships particularly to serve (1) players living in areas where clinics are rare or hard to attend because of the distances involved and (2) clinic instructors who wish to improve their presentations.
Michael O'Brien from Atlanta led the Club-level referee exam activity. It included a busy sales office at the Groton School courts offering a variety of products including Canadian and U.S. rule books, rules interpretation books from Australia and Canada, and the complete US Squash Rules and Referees Program Handbook. Two of the items sold out completely and a large number of players decided to take the open-book, take-home exam. All of the items sold at Groton and others are available at the Rules and Referees web page.
Finally, over 30 formal assessments were completed while candidate referees worked U.S. Championships matches. As a result of their proven competence handling the most difficult matches, two referees, Wendy Ansdell and Rob Thompson, were promoted to the top level, the seventh and eighth referees to reach National Referee status. Six referees were promoted to State-level (formerly known as C-level): Peter Doucette, Richard Hankinson, Dan Hogan, Jamie Pasman, David Prockop and Hope Prockop.
It was a busy and successful Rally. Graham Waters' assessment was: "I believe that US Squash refereeing program is now maturing and that you now have a very good core group of experienced referees. This will stand you in good stead in further developing the program to other parts of the country and in attracting more people into the program."