Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Aggie
While I agree that some expect it to happen more quickly than it should, you shouldn't have to wait 7 years to get a varsity game if you have even moderate ability. I wouldn't have stuck around that long for my first COLLEGE game, much less HS varsity. But I put in the work -- 100+ game years from year 2-6 or so and college camps starting after my second year. I went to those camps with my ears open and my mouth shut. I realize some younger officials don't do this or don't do enough of this.
With that said, experienced officials are doing a huge disservice to their younger brethren (ladies included) by taking a "our turn" view and all but shutting them out of quality assignments. I'm not talking about deep playoff rounds but regular season and early playoff games that these guys probably won't ever work because they'll quit before given the chance. You, Cameron, as a quality 23 year guy may be a guy who can now work any game your state assigns, you didn't get there by continuously working JV and lower level games. You had to be thrown in the fire at some point.
Every organization worth its salt should have a growth or expectations plan. If gives officials a view of how things, on average, should go and what they need to do to progress within the plan. It won't be absolute and there won't be any guarantees, but if they don't see ANYONE getting the benefit of that person following the plan, you might as well not bother.
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Putting a time limit on when officials should or should not do certain games is a recipe for disaster. The assigner would be fired in a nano-second for someone more competent, at least in a decent area. I'm aware there are horrible, even worthless, assigners out there, but I've yet to meet one so I assume they are rare. Just because your ears are open doesn't mean your retaining the good information and dumping the bad. I also, from my very first game, have never kept my mouth shut. Social skills play a massive role, but questioning clinicians, assigners, vets, fellow officials, etc, is a major part of how I grew so fast. As far as how many games you've worked, I can learn more in one game then others can in 100. Officials improvement and better games is far more reliant on them then they realize, especially the officials who complain why they aren't doing a, b, and c games. This mind-set is backwards and is probably an annoyance to almost any assigner.
I've never understood the concept of throwing an official into the fire. Either you're ready or you're not and I'm not going to risk a game blowing up in my face for assigning an official who thinks they're ready because on paper they've been around forever and done a lot of games. I don't care if you've been around for three years or twenty, some are ready and some aren't. Some officials mature after a few years and are ready for NCAA games and some won't be ready after thirty years.
While I think it's important for associations to have plans to improve officials, I entirely disagree with your final paragraph. I didn't care for my associations plan and just did my own. This shouldn't be some awkward parenting system and people can either learn to succeed or not. Who should be worth their salt is an official, not the association. Taking it backwards is why the vast majority of officials just aren't any good. If I had to rely on someone else' program I would never have started officiating in the first place. There are ways to boost your career forward, and blaming everyone else isn't it. In fact, it's the very reason people never move or start to move in the wrong direction.