Quote:
Originally posted by bluezebra
"Now, I can understand your dilemma about work and family commitments. It's even worse where I live. Our game assignments for the week come out in the Sunday paper. I cannot plan my week until the Sunday paper comes out. Every Sunday morning during baseball season, I am on the phone with assignors working the rest of my schedule around my high school schedule. Until Sunday, I have no idea what will happen in any given week. That's just the way it is."
This has to be one of the dumbest ways of assigning games I've ever encountered. Does your assignor own stock in that newspaper? I assigned FED softball and volleyball officials in my area, and my contacts were always personal. I sent out an availability form prior to our first association meeting. When those were returned, I made my assignments for the first part of the season (non-league games). I mailed out duplicate copies to the officials, asking them to return one signed copy at the first meeting. The next schedules were for the rest of the first month. Then, I got together with the instructional chairman, and worked at putting the best officials available on the games that involved playoff-bound teams. Also, having been an official for many years, I understand extenuating circumstances arise. A legitimate reason for turning back an assignment was never punished. Posting assignments in the Sunday paper leads to, "How come Joe got more games than me"? And, it's not fair to the officials as to planing ahead.
Bob
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I will explain.
Something occurred with our high school association before I was a member that led to our association ending the duty of assigning games. The Rhode Island Interscholastic League now assigns the games.
Since the RIIL publishes every scheduled game for the week for all high school sports on Sunday, apparently it seemed logical to them to simply publish the names of the officials beside the game they are covering.
We do provide them with an availability sheet, so we won't be scheduled on days that we have other commitments. For example, if I say I'm available on Wednesdays, I can pretty much count on being assigned a game every Wednesday.
The assignments have been pretty fair. I'm not sure why we don't have more incidents of hard feelings. It could be because the RIIL does the assigning. Or, it could be that our system of rating umpires is based solely on coaches' feedback. That's mainly because of the RIIL, which will back up its umpires if need be, but do create policies that favor the coaches. And, believe it or not, if you do a quality job as an umpire, the coaches will notice. It's not all about politics. (Of course, everyone has some degree of politics)