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There's no question you CAN be better at any level of experience, but saying 1 year or 50 years rings hollow to me. How many games did you work in each year? How many HS or varsity games, perhaps college games, did you work? How many scrimmages, spring games, camps, etc.? Sometimes the light just comes on earlier than it does for others, and as I've alluded to, previous and additional officiating experience helps tremendously.
We have guys in my chapter that work close to 80 subvarsity games a year. The work every night, Monday through Thursday, most weeks of the season. We have 11 full weeks, plus partial weeks like this year where I had a JV game for 2 private schools the week before what we call zero week. Jr. High games don't start in zero week and they usually end a week before the high school season ends, so its tough to work 11 or even 10 full weeks of football. But there are sub varsity Friday and Saturday games in some instances and guys that beat the bushes work a lot. None of this even gets into the pee-wee realm. Add that, and some guys work over 120 a year.
From what I've heard on this board, some guys talk about 25 games a year as a full season. Frankly, I worked about 45 Varsity and subvarsity games this year (no peewee) and I feel like I had a fairly light schedule. So for you guys that count 25-35 games as a year, what do you count 80+ as?
That's why you can't have hard and fast 5 year rules. On the other hand, our chapter did have some problems with crews of lesser experienced officials in some of the higher level playoff games. I think in those situations, the big stadiums and crowds (10-15K) might have gotten to them. I personally felt comfortable (except for the weather) in my playoff game this year. Would I have felt the same in front of 10K? I can't say, but things would have been different. THAT is probably the discussion that we need to have.
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