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Originally Posted by GarthB
Maybe yes, maybe no.
I know of several who work this way and some of their experiences differ from what you suppose.
Some have found that dealing with AD's and coaches to get games involve even more politics and good ol' boy networking than dealing with assigners. Those new to the area had even more difficulty breaking in.
Others have told me that AD's and coaches know little about what makes a good umpire and a lot more about who works "their" way. One was permanently banned from a school after a game ending call that kept the home team from the play-offs.
That said, I also know that Rich Fronheiser works this way and seems to enjoy it.
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I enjoy it only because I am willing to put in the work necessary to build three (football, basketball, baseball) schedules this way. I'm in control. And I spread my work out enough so that I'm not dependent on one assignor. If I have a bad experience at a school, I cross them off the list of schools whose AD's I approach.
I work more games than I would in an association system where I would have to deal with one assigner trying to make it fair for all the members at my level. I take games on the days I want and don't take games on the days I want off, which is important cause I travel for a living.
And yet, it's not all peaches and cream. I got blackballed from a conference here because I threw a couple of (deserved) technicals during basketball games. One the one hand, I haven't gotten any games for that conference. On the other hand, he's only one of a dozen conference assigners I work for and the closest school he assigns is 80 miles away. Maybe it is a good thing.
At the end of the day, you have to be able to point at your body of work and feel good about it. I won't hesitate to punish bad behavior and I work hard at what I do. My crews are some of the highest rated in some conferences in all the sports I work (the commissioners have told me this) -- however there's one conference that won't hire us in basketball cause "he has enough officials." Another probably won't hire us after this year cause I didn't go to his camp. Oh well. I'll never have a shortage of games as long as I have 12-14 people assigning me plus all the schools with their nonconference dates.