Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich
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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This is good stuff. Thanks for the insight.
Our new assigner this year is 180 degrees from how the old one did it. I'm close to a major metro league in our state, and for years, the former assigner would only give the metro league games to the old boys club and it was really tough to break into. A friend of mine did games for him for 8 years and would get ~1 or 2 metro games a year, instead being sent 90-120 minutes every Tuesday and Friday night with the occasional proximal small school game. That's fine sometimes, but you've got to throw a guy a bone once in a while. The new guy has been so great about getting everyone into the metro league rather than just the old stand-bys. I actually left the old assigner because of so many people with the same experiences as my friend, and in my first year back with this association this year, I've gotten a couple of the metro league games even though I've only been reffing 5 years and doing varsity for a couple. I also try hard to never turn games back, and to always let him know if I free up a night I had blocked and go wherever he asks me to go, so hopefully that will pay off in the long run.