The hard decisions come when you're not talking about working a different game, or even giving up a single game, but giving up the entire season (or more)... Examples:
- I played small college ball in Montana... The father of one of the quarterbacks was a referee... He ended up not officiating the college seasons while his son was in school... (I don't know how much of this was conflict based and how much was just wanting to watch the games...) Wise choice, I think, but I imagine it would be tough to give up doing college ball for four years...
- I went to High school in a city with 6 high schools... I attended one my freshman year and another for the other three years... Additionally, my line coach for two of those years, and the coach I respected the most, coaches at a third... So you could argue that I should not do any games with any of those teams... Most weeks, that would leave no games for me to work... (But I don't live there anymore, so it's a moot point...)
- There was a seventh team in that conference that lived far enough away that the only way to get there was to fly. I'm fairly sure the conference didn't pay for officials to get there from the main official pool, so the only official pool would be the local townsfolk... I would wager that most of them were graduates of that high school... But I can't think of a better way that would work financially...
I realize that these are some somewhat extreme cases, but they're something to think about...