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I'm an assigner and an evaluator. Reports from other evaluators in our association flow to me,also. If you're going to do your job properly as an assigner, you have to know the general capabilities of each official that you put out on the floor.You also have to be very aware of personalities too. You can have the 2 or 3 greatest officials in the area, but if they don't get along, you're better off keeping them away from each other if you can. Also, our Association is set up so that all complaints come to me, also. The easiest complaints that we get to handle are the ones that we can respond to by saying "hey, what the officials did is exactly what the rulebook tells them to do". Nobody can argue that. It can be very hard to justify any complaint, though, where the official tried to make up his own rule to fit a situation.
As for philosophies, I don't think that our's are too much different than any one elses'. We want our guys to be strictly neutral, use commom sense, avoid meaningless battles if we can,and be as consistent as possible. Naturally, that's not what the schools are gonna get every game, though. Any officials' group is composed of some good to great officials, average officials, and some officials that probably shouldn't be out there if we had more bodies.
How do I stay abreast of the rules? Well, it's a heckuva lot easier now with the internet, and websites for the NFHS,NCAA,NASO,etc., as well as forums like this one. If you pay attention, you learn a lot just visiting these sites on a regular basis. This site alone has numerous officials that I would call very knowledgeable. They know the rules,but also as importantly, they can tell us how to apply those rules. The other plus that this site has is that some very astute coaches come here also. I find their their point of view of some situations can be very helpful.
[Edited by Jurassic Referee on Jan 17th, 2004 at 11:29 AM]
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