[MCBear]

I hate to burst your bubble, guys, but volleyball is the most difficult sport to officiate, period!

Now, before you burst a jugular after reading that sentence, hear me out. I started out as a basketball official and worked the sport for 10 years, I proceeded to umpire high school baseball and fast-pitch softball as well as summer ball. Those sports were easy for me to do because I had experience with the games that I was officiating. Volleyball, however, was a whole different case.

I originally decided to do volleyball because I remembered what it was like, freezing my butt off on the football sideline at the end of October, early November in NorthWest Ohio. So, I decided to officiate volleyball.

Yes, the pay for officiating volleybal is pretty decent, but if you are going to do a good job, you better be willing to work your tail off to learn the game. BktBallRef, you have obviously never studied the game of volleyball because you never played it competitively. You sound exactly like a lot of the guys who thought that reffing volleyball was easy money, like stealing it from a baby. It is only that if you don't take the time to learn how to officiate the game properly.

I freely admit, that of all the sports that I officiated, I disliked (read that "hated") volleyball the most because (1) I had never played the sport and (2) every time the ball is touched, it is a judgment call as to whether the contact is legal or not. I couldn't see the double for the longest time, but I worked my tail off to follow the advice of coaches and officials whom I respected. Plus, learning when a team is out of rotation with some of the "stacks" that coaches have devised will almost drive you cross-eyed trying to figure out what the heck the team is doing.

What I am saying, in a nutshell, is what I heard a very respected volleyball official say, "Refereeing volleyball is easy...unless you want to do it correctly! Then, you are going to have to do some serious work to get it right."

Those kids on the court deserve the best job of officiating that can be provided. If the official isn't there for the kids and the love of the game, I can guarantee that particular individual is not going to be officiating volleyball very long because they will either consider it a "boring" sport or the coaches will not put up with the attitude of the ref being there just for the paycheck.

After 10 years of refereeing basketball and 11 years of umpiring baseball/softball, the only sport that I do any more is volleyball and I think that I may finally be getting an idea what the sport is about as I start my 25th season.