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Originally Posted by Snaqwells
For most of us, politics is local and personal. Who did I piss off? Did I do the right camp? Did I work enough of the crap games this year? Did I attend enough meetings and make sure the right people saw me there?
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This is no different than anyone else I have come in contact with. You will not work in my area unless you are seen by the right person or you do not do the right things or be available when you claim you are available.
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Originally Posted by Snaqwells
For some, however, it's political stuff that happens way over our heads. Did they negotiate a decent pay rate? Did our association hold on to the Metro Conference? Did I pick the right association?
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Not stuff any of us can control. As I said we have had conferences change assignors, tournaments and shootouts. You deal with it and move on. Change with the times and work hard and you would be surprised what opportunities come your way.
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Originally Posted by Snaqwells
Picking the right association can be like picking a route home from work only to find that there is an accident in your path costing you an extra 90 minutes on the drive. It wasn't a "wrong" choice, except in hind sight.
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We all do that from time to time. Again it does not mean your career is over. Heck you know how many camps I have gone to only to not get hired or to not be worth the time? I do not complain about it, I learned from it and chose better the next time.
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Originally Posted by Snaqwells
For me, it's easy. There's only one association for high school basketball and we cover a very large area. For you, it's easy, because your conference assigners aren't tied to the association network directly. But when the "right" association for your local games changes due to high level pissing matches, that's not so easy. It's easy to judge from afar, though.
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Well it is not easy here, because you have to go to many camps, please many assignors and hope that when they give games you are not already booked. Or better yet if you are trying to get into college that the certain assignor is not ticked off that those varsity games you just were assigned is not going to take your entire schedule if you give back one date. Then you have to worry about the one assignor thinks that you are not ready for varsity is made when you give back those sophomore games on a Friday that they will not hold that against you in the future. Oh and let us not talk about double booking or other unfortunate issues like not putting the right information on the Arbiter when you close a date.
I never said it was easy or that politics do not occur. It is how you look at it or learn from others to avoid some issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snaqwells
Welpe is relatively new to basketball, and this is the sort of association level politics that tends to drive good officials away. If it's stuff they have control over, it's one thing. Get your face seen, get your name known, go to meetings, work the 7th grade girls games three towns over. But when they pull that rug out, you can expect a bit of frustration from decent officials who just want to play "the game" and get games.
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I am running camps right now where people are like Welpe and others that want to get games and get anything they want. Then we have to deal with the guy that wants it all right now. A big part of the politics we deal with is the guy that thinks they are better than everyone and should be working the State Finals or D1 right off the bat. But these same guys give back sophomore games because they are not willing to prove their worth at that level, but only want to work varsity. Then in these camps when we see someone tell a clinician that they have no idea how the fight started and that they were not aware that there were problems before, they cannot understand why they are not assigned an East-West game (any number of schools this could apply to) or the top Christmas tournament. Look I sat on the waiting list for one of the best or most well known in the country for 10 years while thinking the entire time I was worthy. Well I finely got in that tournament and I am so blessed it did not happen sooner.
We all have a process to follow. My point is we should work hard and control those things we can. We cannot control everything in officiating and in life.
Peace