[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by zm1283

I didn't say mentors. My point was that you are so arrogant you think only 4 guys know enough to ever give you advice. I'm pretty sure there are more than 4 out of 6,000 that are qualified to give you advice. Whether you would want to listen to them or not is a different story.

You have only been doing this for about 4 years right? I have been doing this for going into my 16th year and having lived in two totally different places in my state. I have had mentors that I listen to the most. If I listened to everyone that gave me advice over the years, I would not be where I am today as an official and in some board positions that I currently hold. I would not have worked the levels, post season or tournaments as many would claim I could not do that or that they would not share that information. You probably do not even realize the very thing you are disagreeing with you seem to make a claim of veterans.

I will work one of the biggest assignments of my life in a couple of weeks with two people that if they did not give me a shot or help me, I would not be where I am today not only as an official in this sport, but another sport because they encouraged me. And I get to work with two of them in this assignment, but you do not understand why I said out of all those officials I would only listen to 4 people? LOL!!!! Keep living and you will one day see what I am talking about. None of us accomplish anything in this without a very select few helping us.

Originally Posted by zm1283

How is that? At what point is someone not a rookie anymore? This is my fifth year and I work a full varsity schedule and have worked postseason games already. Am I still a rookie? Is anyone with less experience than you a rookie?

Rookie has little to do with years of experience, but a mindset. You could be have 10 years of officiating experience and still be a rookie in your mentality. And if you think a disagreement with another official over a rule is the same as not helping a younger official, then that is all I need to say about that.

Originally Posted by zm1283

We know you're god's gift to officiating, you've made that perfectly clear a number of times on here. Unfortunately you give a bad name to the veteran officials who are approachable and try to help whenever asked. Fortunately they do outnumber the ones like you, but one wouldn't know that from reading your diatribes on this board.

Not God's gift, but certainly more knowledgeable then you appear to be at this of our careers in officiating. When you deal with as much people that I did just this week alone then talk to me. Tonight I would have been involved in training younger and veterans with over 100 officials, first on Monday were over 60 attended my basketball class that I am the founder of and the other is an organization where I am President.

Basketball Training Class | Inter-Athletic Council of OfficialsJust Monday

Peace