Quote:
Originally posted by Brian Watson
I have worked basketball, volleyball, and track for years. I firmly feel that they helped me mature as an official faster, and that I learned how to handle game sitchs much better.
One of the big knocks I have on some rooks is their game management. I see many throwing gas on the fire, than trying to cool the coach off. A subtle skill they need to learn, but cannot be taught in a classroom.
I think the exposure you get to different coaches helps how or how fast you move up. If you can show you can handle intense situation uin one sport, AD's might give you a shot in another. At least that was my experience.
I also have some experience to back this up. I took up lacrosse this year because they are really, really, squeezed for officials, and it looked like a good way to stay in shape and avoid summer ball. I had never seen the game, but I was ahead of the curve. I needed to learn rules and mechanics (Which are a hybrid of basketball and football IMO), but most coaches complimented me on my game management and professionalism. If I was not an official in other sports I doubt that would have happened. And it fosters good will when they think you can manage a game well.
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I totally agree. I did a full season of football before my first season of basketball. Even thought I did not know everything much about the mechanics in basketball, but being a Line Judge on my football crew and having to deal with coaches complain about everything I did and what my partners did, I was very seasoned for the basketball season. And when I did my first baseball and softball season at the end of that school year, I looked like the best baseball umpire around. My first baseball game ever was a varsity game. I had no clue what I was doing. But because of my demeanor and game management skills I had recieved from the previous football and basketball seasons, many coaches and AD's tell me how good they felt I was. Now was I that good, not really but I was able to carry myself in such a way and had experience with other rules and studying those rules, that I was better at carrying over some of the same principles.
And when you do varsity in one sport, well they AD's usually assume you are prepared to do varsity in another. So I did get varsity games in basketball and baseball because I did varsity in football my first year.