Craven sticks to sensible advice
Dave Craven teaches his umpires a simple lesson, make sensible decisions.
His advice has been heard by aspiring umpires for years and that is part of the reason he was inducted into the Sport Manawatu Legends of Sport at their awards ceremony on Friday night.
Craven found his calling coaching umpires, but that was only after he played and then umpired hockey.
‘‘I was not a good hockey player, I was hopeless,’’ he said.
And in 1957 after playing in a poorly officiated match, he decided to give umpiring a crack.
‘‘I was playing and something happened, I don’t remember what, and I was not happy with the umpiring,’’ he said. ‘‘I though ‘It has got to be easy, there is nothing to it, it is just rules and I can learn those easy’.’’
But picking up the whistle came with its challenges. He turned to Harry Turner, then a top umpire and brother to hockey legend Bruce Turner, for advice.
‘‘When I started umpiring... I asked Harry to have a look at me.,’’ he said. ‘‘He said ‘I think you should throw your rule book away’. That was the most sensible advice I think I have every had. I was too technical. I was looking for things wrong. I was ball-watching and waiting for someone to make a mistake.’’
And that changed the way he umpired the sport and set him up for a long career in the role.
‘‘I umpired until I was 45, that is when they cross you off the international list. I started coaching junior umpires because at the primary schools national tournament the umpiring was all done by coaches and locals and it was terrible.
‘‘I found that I was better at coaching than umpiring. I could tell people what to do, but I didn’t always do it myself. So I started coaching umpires and I was running tournaments for New Zealand and got some appointments internationally.
‘‘Coaching umpires is my love and it is what I do best.’’
Among his proteges is David Tomlinson, New Zealand’s current
top-ranked umpire.
But Craven said now his role is more focused on just talking to young umpires, rather than coaching them.
His advice to young players stems back to the message he received from Turner back when he was starting out.
‘‘[I tell them] make a sensible decision,’’ he said.
‘‘There is no use saying ‘The rule book says this on page 35’, I am not interested in that. They need to know enough about the rules to be sensible about them. If you make a sensible decision, it is hard for people to complain about it.’’
Over his years involved with umpiring, he said he had received plenty of ‘‘advice’’ from players and coaches, but he said most of the time it was not because the call was wrong.
‘‘It is not so much the mistakes, it is the 50/50 calls,’’ he said. ‘‘They want 60 percent of the 50/50, that is usually enough to let you win.’’
Craven’s involvement in New Zealand Hockey have been dialled back in recent years, but the respect he holds is still prominent.