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Besides being a veteran official, I'm an assigner -- and I am a firm believer of getting younger people into the mix of varsity assignments as early as I feel comfortable with them and/or the situation. I had a college student work a game that I observed last night and he's one of the best officials I've seen this year -- I've passed his name onto other assigners already.
But keep in mind that I am in the business of filling 348 varsity games a season -- both great and 1* games, both boys and girls. If I schedule a crew to work a 1* game, I'm not interested in hearing complaints about it. I work my share of those and I turn down subsequent great assignments cause I'm honoring my contract.
One thing I've noticed is that many of the bad behaviors in officials come from people who are newer to this world. If I had to list my 10 biggest annoyances this season, 8 of them would come from younger officials.
For example, double booking and then taking the closer / better game and dumping the other one. Another example: Telling me that they only want boys games from me and thinking I should honor this request (even though it's fine if they happen to get assigned to girls playoff games -- they'll work those, of course.) Frankly, there are maybe 3-4 officials who work for me who I honor the "boys only" request (because they are men's college officials and I like having them a couple of times a season) and the rest get to work both or not work at all for me.
I'm only 3 years into this gig now, but I've seen enough to say that it's not as simple as some people think. I've cut loose some really good officials cause I do not like how they take care of their business. I'm paid to assign games once. In my world, dependable trumps excellent.
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