[cowbyfan1]

I have to agree that keeping new officials is hard to do. I think that there are a few things that lead to them not hanging around:
1. They find out it is not as easy as they think it is
2. laziness as they do not want to put in the time to get better or the time to get games.
3. they think they can walk in off the street and call that big game or even playoffs. We had a guy in my rookie class actually call the state wondering where his state playoff game was and why had he not been called.
4. Senior memebers not working with them and or getting so many different "pointers". An association needs to be on the same sheet as much as possible. I can remember being told so many different things on signals, where to move, when to move, etc for working a wing spot my head hurt.
5. life changes where they don't have or don't want to have the time to call.

I'm sure that there are others.

My second year we had something like 27 new officials that year. I think we have kept something like 3 or 4. There are only a few left from my rookie class. We split our 1st - 3rd year officials out from the rest to get training on mechanics. But again, some other senior guys think that they do it the best way and it can get rough on a young guy.