Quote:
Originally Posted by biggravy
Thanks for an interesting, timely topic. Especially since it comes from a fellow Kansas official. I'm 38 and have never had facial hair. After the end of last year's season I grew a beard for the first time. Found out I love it. Had no comments through baseball. I was wondering about basketball since nearly everyone I call with (HS V only no college) is clean shaven. At our area meeting I already had one comment and a few weird looks. Besides the beard I've lost 40 pounds since January and worked on my game. I'm in the best shape of my life. I want to keep getting better and maybe do college some day. Seems silly that facial hair will hold me back but it sounds like a very real possibility.
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The beard will hold you back from the college game. At the high school level, the 40 lbs weight loss offsets the beard.
I'm half joking about the high school part... As you can see from the thread, it varies by region and by assignor. From my experience, these things all play some role but the extent it will impact you varies by a lot of other factors. For most high school assignors these are more important than your facial hair: Dependability, availability, communication, play calling and rules knowledge. "Looking the part" often gives people the impression you can do the above things well. It might not be true, but that "eye test" is often a reality. If you're overweight, wearing a beard, have long hair, etc you might not pass the eye test and then the other criteria doesn't even matter because you've already been crossed off the list. Of course this is totally dependent on the number of games to be assigned and the number of available officials. Supply and demand plays a major role here.