[WindyCityBlue]

The "Peace" close doesn't bother me.

The fact that you believe that you and I said the same thing in our posts amazes all of us. No, we did not just say it differently. We are diametrically opposed in our philosophies. Maybe we can convince Peter that the word customer is a stretch, but his intent is obvious. The official is supplying a service to an end user. In many parts of the country, the end user IS the coach. Many small schools hire their officials directly. This responsibility is handled by an AD or the coach. They can and do care about what they are paying for. Some may not have much of a choice due to a limited official supply. But, they will object to poor service. Yes, our responsibility is ultimately to honor the game - not the players, as you alluded to in another post.

In Chaicago and many metropolitan areas, the assisgnor take a lot of heat for supplying bad officials. As the adage goes, sh*t rolls down hill. The umpire will hear about it and may be removed. While some assignors may support and official and put him back on a contest when the coach has asked otherwise, he won't keep doing that if the coach keeps complaining. Don't be a fool. There are simply too many options and assignors are replaced regularly or the association might lose the league/school/conference.

You may not answer directly to the coach - from your responses here, it seems obvious that you don't care about image. However, if an umpire p*sses off the wrong coach, I guarantee that he will hear about it. When the coach escalates the issue past an assignor to a Board of Directors or tells his AD to get involved, heads will roll.

Officials are considered independent contractors in many states. They provide a service for a fee. If you take the base of this description, the customer pays for a product. They demand value for their money and complain like any other consumer when it falls short.