Benefits of Becoming an Official

1. Help support an excellent sport for children and promote a healthy lifestyle for children.
2. Gain a more thorough understanding of swimming in particular, and sports in general.
3. Fulfill volunteer obligations at Club Meets.
4. Get closer to the action; know what’s happening on deck with the “best seat” in the pool.
5. Get mentally and physically engaged during the Meet rather than merely “spectating.”
6. Be cooler on deck than in the stands.
7. Receive free admission and great hospitality during sessions officiated.

Welcome!

We are excited to have you join the Illinois Swimming Officiating team!

Join our Facebook Group!

We have streamlined the training for every position, reducing the time and money it takes to become a certified official. Each position has a slightly different track to complete so please feel free to jump to the Training Information page if you are ready to go!

Becoming an official consists of registration as a non-athlete, completion of training requirements for your position, and then completing the certification process.

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Registration

Becoming a non-athlete member of USA Swimming includes:

• Registration must be requested directly from your club - ONLY use that link to create your non-athlete profile (if you do it directly from the USA Swimming site, you will have duplicate accounts that will require additional work for merging).

• Complete a Background Check

• Complete Athlete Protection Training

• Obtain a concussion training certificate from either the National Federation of High Schools or the Center for Disease Control and email it to the Illinois Swimming Office.

Training

Official Training is governed by the position you are training for. You must register to train for any position. You can do that on the Training Information Page.

The details for each position are laid out on the position training pages:

• Stroke and Turn Judge
• Administrative Official
• Starter
• Referee
• Open Water

Certification

Once your training is complete, send your documents via email to the Illinois Swimming Officials Committee.

All the documents you need are available on the Registration and Certification page.

Questions?

Questions for the Committee? Questions about Officiating? Contact [email protected]. Please allow a few days for a response as the mailbox is staffed by volunteers.

For More Information, please contact the officials committee at [email protected] or visit the Illinois Swimming Officials Page.