[JRutledge]

You really cannot work a sport year round. Well maybe one, basketball. So there is only so much concentration you can put toward any one sport. Unless you are working indoor sports, I do not see how you can work any one sport them all the time. I know baseball in this area is kind of hard to work in November to early March.

The same basic philosophies work in all sports. Just because you are working a baseball game, does not mean you cannot apply your people skills, common sense and basic judgment to another sport. The same type of conversations I have in a basketball game about foul calls or almost identical to the same debates I might have on a baseball field about outs or balls and strikes. The players approach you the same way about holding in football as they do about a balk call in baseball. The coaches approach you the same way as well. The issue just changes. The fans think we all do not know a particular rule or yell things that you will never see in a rulebook. In baseball it might be when the hands are apart of the hands. While in basketball you hear "moving screens" and "over the back."

The only way I can see anyone being mediocre is if they do not approach a sport seriously. You can only attend so many camps and attend only so many meetings. At some point you have to get out and work games. The only sport I know where you can attend a camp and can guarantee working games is basketball. I do not see how you can work any other sport so hard and get so much out of it during the off-season. As I said before, you can only read so much about the rules and the mechanics. At some point you have to work some games to test that knowledge.

Just my two cents.

Peace