Incompetent Partner

[bluezebra]

Do you expect to give a blood test before and after every game? Do you expect the FBI to check everyone background, talk to all your friends and associates and everyone that you worked with in your life time. There is only so much that anyone is going to do to get officials. We already have a shortage of official. You are telling me that everyone that officiates in your area goes through that kind of trouble to officiate one game? It is no different than trying to get a job. You give an employer basic information that can be verified, than you leave it at that. I personally am not a felon, I personally have never committed any sexual crime against a minor or anyone for that matter, but to get any information outside of that is a bit much. You are not going to know someone is an alcoholic unless someone tells you, and even then, most people are not going to know anyway. If you are a drug user or an alcoholic, the very closes people may not know. There is only so far anyone is going to go. If this was the first incident of this person, how would you know unless he had been caught or found out.

I live in Illinois, and I have worked in Iowa too. I really have never seen anything other than a criminal background check done in both states. It is not like the we are talking about the NCAA, states do not have that kind of money, nor would you want to discourage every single person that shows an interest to get paid as little as we do. It is not like being an officials brings us hundreds of thousands of dollars. You might be lucky if you get $40, and you expect everyone to have every little detail in someones background to examined and dissected? Sounds a bit much to me.
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Just keepin it real!!!

What in the world are you talking about? I never mentioned police reports, blood tests, oaths of allegiance, or anything else. Just to be qualified to officiate. Here in California (I'm in Southern California) we are required to join our local high school officials' association, attend a clinic, meetings, take and pass with at least 80%, a qualifying exam. We are not permitted to officiate a high school game if we're not qualified by our local unit. Schools send their schedules to a liaison person who forwards them to local unit assignors who then assign games.

Bob

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by bluezebra


What in the world are you talking about? I never mentioned police reports, blood tests, oaths of allegiance, or anything else. Just to be qualified to officiate. Here in California (I'm in Southern California) we are required to join our local high school officials' association, attend a clinic, meetings, take and pass with at least 80%, a qualifying exam. We are not permitted to officiate a high school game if we're not qualified by our local unit. Schools send their schedules to a liaison person who forwards them to local unit assignors who then assign games.

Bob

Well to figure out that this individual was "qualified" or not, you would have had to do all those things. As I said, this might have been this guys first time in this behavior. Unless he had other incidents that people would have known about before hand, as long as the state or the officials association knew about, then he was qualified.

I live in Illinois, and the only requirement to do games is to pass the requirements of the state. All you have to do is get 80% on the Part 1 exam every year. You have to pass the background information that the state wants you to to have a license. And every 3 years you have to go to a officials clinic. It is not required to be a member of any officials association or organization of any kind. If a school or assignor wants to use you, they can. Now to do the playoffs you need to do some other things, but to do a simple IHSA game, if the state licenses you, that is all you need. The rest is up to the people that assign the games. And even with an association in my state or any other, I really do not think they are going to hold you back if you want to do games. You might not get the best game, but you will get games. We already have enough problems getting officials and retaining them all over the country, I am sure that officials associations, if they want to keep people are going to weed out all the bad apples until they have been in their association for a little while. And even the associations that I have run into that have membership restrictions or applications to become a full member, they do not hold you back from working. They usually take some time to evaluate you before you become a full member. But again, you still work.


This individual was more than likely "qualified." But that does not mean very much if you think about it.