Quote:
Originally Posted by crosscountry55
Those that know me on the forum know that I just completed a move from Virginia to Wisconsin. I am respectfully making the rounds with various conference commissioners, introducing myself, getting court time where able, etc.
Before I moved many on this forum often discussed the variety of assigning systems in different states and areas. As part of this, and with Rich's input, we often talked about Wisconsin's long-term assigning and contracting system.
So now I'm here. When in Rome, you do as the Romans do, so I'm making the best of it. But I must say, I've already noticed a fair amount of disunity. That is to say, there are tons of associations that more or less compete with each other for credibility. Some have assigners, some don't. Some assigners assign for two schools, and some assign for twenty. Some conferences have more than one assigner, i.e. the conference can't agree on a common assigner so the schools choose "their guy." And then of course there's the fact that WIAA requires schools to individually contract games with officials---on paper by snail mail---which forces schedules and assignments to be made months and sometimes years in advance, often outside of Arbiter on a pen-and-paper basis. As a move-in, with the exception of a few metro conferences that are breaking free of long-term assignments and permanent crews, the best I can hope for this year is to be a spot-fill for openings that come up.
It is what it is. But it makes me appreciate so much more the places in America in which assigners and associations work together to fill the games on a more rational real-time basis....with a wide variety of partners....all using Arbiter so that archaic double-bookings do not occur.
I love my home state, but golly gee do we ever assign basketball officials chaotically. It could (and should) be so much better.
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I don't have time to write a book on the subject now, but there are plusses and minuses to the system.
All things being relatively equal, I like the system more than when I was in other states -- where I had to join one association and hope that that one assigner liked me enough to assign me games. When I was in such a place in the 90s, I was given my schedule for the first half of the season at the first meeting. Most weeks I worked 2 days....and had no avenue to fill in the other 3 days of the week I wanted to work.
Here I work for about 10-12 different assigners and I'm also an assigner (commissioner) myself -- I have 23 boys programs and 22 girls and I assign the varsity officials for all of them -- it is over 1000 slots a year. I have started a pilot program where one of the associations where I'm a member will assign 6 boys and 6 girls programs using their scheduling criteria with very little guidance from me.
Because I work for so many as an official, if I fall out of favor with one assigner, it creates a minimal (if any) disruption to my schedule. I've averaged over 50 varsity games a year since I moved here in 2002. If I want to work more, I work for more leagues / schools. If I don't, I can scale back and nobody really notices.
The one thing I hate about the mentality in most of Wisconsin is the "crew" mentality. Good officials who don't have "regular partners" are left behind, which is idiotic. I'd love to move to a system where I put individual officials on games, but the crew system is just too strong in my area of the state.
Someday I'll write that book, but it will include chapters on officials and how they can be their own worst enemies.