I graduated from high school in 1969; I was a two time varsity letterman in basketball. My highs school's varsity basketball coach coached two more years. Our school dominated our league, winninng 15 league championhips (I played on two of those championship teams) in the 21 years that my coach coached there. Our school also finished second four times (I played on one of those teams) during those 21 years.
I have not officiated a basketball game in the Youngstown area since the 1986-87 season, and even today I would not officiate any basketball game involving my high school because even today there would be people in the stands from my high school and from certain schools in our league that would recognize me from my high school championship seasons. And I didn't even start,
!
Some people would also associate me with my sister who was a stellar high school golfer (I wasn't too bad myself) and later the dominate amatuer female golfer in the Youngstown area after she returned home after college.
I might do a girls' JV basketball game involving my high school but that would be the extent of it.
One has to remember that I never started completing Schedule C's until 1982 and my wife and I were first married and living in Glendale, California, when I received an telephone call from the Secretary of the Trumbull Co. Bkb. Off. Assn. (Warren, Ohio, and I am still a member of this association even though the last time I attended a meeting was in Nov. 1986) telling me that one of our veteran members had just been audited by the IRS. A fan who didn't like his officiating turned him into the IRS and he had to pay over $1,000 in back taxes, interest, and fines. And this wasn't even Mafia payback because he wasn't in the Mafia,
; but I am,
.
I could go on with other stories about conflict of interest, but it really is not worth it even when you make the correct call and it goes in "your" school's favor. Remember:
No good deed goess unpunished.
MTD, Sr.