I have three friends (a word I don't use lightly) that currently work in the PAC-10, one of which is my mentor and someone I'm very close with in all aspects of life. My last summer in Vegas, 2002, I was invited to the PAC-10 camp. The PAC-10 invites 12 officials to their camp and the U1s and U2s work also. The games are played by JC teams from California. At the meetings PAC-10 business is handled which is different from other camps since there are only 12 "outsiders" in the room. The PAC-10 staff is the premier conference on the west coast and the staff is made up of strong officials such as:
Dave Libby (I think 7 Final Fours)
Charlie Range (I think 6 Final Fours)
Dick Cartmel (worked a championship game in the past 5 years)
Verne Harris (04 championship game)
Mark Reisling
Bill Kennedy
Bruce Hicks
Michael Irving (on the NBA radar)
and many others to include losing two guys to the NBA this season.
I was blessed to be in a position to be there and it is not an ego thing. I can say for certainty that the PAC-10 tries very hard to do what Hank Nichols wants done. Period. If the original poster wants to put his money where his mouth is then there are opportunities to not only begin officiating but go to the camps where you can work towards earning an invitation (this is a true invitation to the camp in Walnut Creek with $0 out of pocket expenses) to the PAC-10 camp. It would have been much wiser to single out an individiual rather than a whole conference. The facts are every conference has someone in it that isn't as strong as others. That will probably remain until the end of time or politics, which ever comes first.
By doing this the poster indirectly criticized the staff of the WAC, Big 12, Conference USA, Mountain West, WCC, Big Sky and Big West. As a whole the PAC-10 is good.