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Originally Posted by Smitty
I'm pretty sure I saw a first year transfer working varsity games his first year in our association (Portland). I know he's working top varsity games this year (his second year here), but I'm not sure if he has a varsity only schedule or not. I saw him work last year and was incredibly impressed. He is young, in great shape and was an outstanding official.
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You could be right, Dave. I was just stating a generality that I know to be true. Transfers generally DON'T get varsity games their first year. I thought no one did, but I don't know everyone.
I'm also a little surprised at the reaction my statement got. Good grief, it was just a generalization from one middle level ref to an unknown ref from across the country. We don't have a policy against transfers getting varsity, I don't think. I really don't know what would happen if Ed Hightower showed up and wanted to work some 1A girls' varsity games.
It also looks as though the various "systems" and structures that are in place in different areas are affecting people's perceptions of what I said. Just for the record, here's a more detailed description of how our association looks from my vantage point.
We have about 325 refs to cover about 7000 games per season (our association handles ONLY school ball and only during the season). Of those, a few (10?) do mostly college and get only a very few hs games, like 5 or 10, all varsity. They stay in the association to "give back" and to maintain their hs eligibility. Then there are another number (20? 25?) who do some college and some hs. These folks probably do mostly varsity, but even they aren't guaranteed exclusively varsity. I don't know for sure, but I expect most of them will end up doing at least one or two JV or freshman games, just for the convenience of the assignor.
Then there is another number of refs who do only or largely hs and lower, and are the top-ability-refs other than the college folks. THese refs will do 2 or 3 varsity games a wekk at most, but if they want more games, or have more availability, it won't come to them in varsity games. There's almost no one in our association who does exclusively varsity. And I've worked freshman and even ms games with college/hs refs who were helping out the assignor in an emergency. No one gets to say, "I don't do that."
On the other hand, when someone is moving up, and is on the verge of becoming a really top official, he or she can quickly be getting some of the best varsity games, if able and willing. But because there are so many really good officials (not just the ol' boys) there's always a lot of competition.
The unknown factor in the whole thing is our assignor. Our association doesn't "rank" or "grade" us. We are given games based on what our assignor knows about our abilities. This is a good system when you have an excellent assignor (which we do, I know, even though I don't always agree with how he does things), but can be very bad when all that power falls into the wrong hands.
Whether a transfer is given varsity games in the first year is totally up to our assignor, there's no hard rules about it. That might be good or bad, but it's how it is. Most transfers probably CAN'T prove their abilities in one scrimmage (yes we have that, tomegun), and I haven't known any transfers who got varsity their first year. But as Smitty said (same association) it may happen. I'm quite sure it's quite rare.
I expect of Ed Hightower showed up, yea he'd get varsity games, although frankly, I can't imagine him wanting them. We've got some pretty good teams around here, but it's still just high school. Besides, a year of sub-varsity might be good for the guy. Give him a chance to re-learn table management, talking to a newbie, two-whistle mechanics (used exclusively in Oregon) and a slower pace of game!