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As for your quandary regarding future games, I can't say that I have been there and can answer with full knowledge. But I can't resist the obvious question - where do you draw this line? What is an acceptable request from a coach that you will follow his wishes so you aren't blacklisted? This may seem harmless, but it seems to me that you are going into places you don't want to be if you are granting favors for a quid pro quo.
I am sure you didn't mean it that way, but re-read your post and think about the implications. I personally wouldn't want to be in your shoes, and I know you're stuck with how things are in your area. But you have a job to do, and I know what I think about how it should be done. [/B]
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In some ways, I DO mean it that way. I believe it is difficult for many young officials to draw the line in the proper place! One of the mentors in my area teaches young officials how to "play the coaches" so you can make it into the state tournament. At first, I bought into his teachings since I wanted to get into the tournament. Since I've been in it for a while, and looking back, I completely disagree with his way. Now that I've been to a few college camps that have gotten me focused on doing what is right rather than trying to be so accommodating to the coaches, I'm interested how the coaches will react.
The biggest problem in Indiana: the basketball coaches have all the power in terms of whether an official makes it to, and advances in, the state tournaments. Therefore, the official who wants to make it into either tournament gets caught in-between doing what is often the correct thing to do vs. how can I make/keep the coach happy so he/she won't "ding" me!
Although most of the officials in the tournaments are good, you could imagine that we do NOT have ALL of the top guys participating simply because they either don't want to play the politics, or because a few coaches make sure that official doesn't make it into the tournament...by calling a few other coaches, and so on, and so on.