Assigning Software Poll

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

This is a long post with a poll involved and I thank you in advance for your patience.

MTD, Jr., and I belong to two umpiring associations that use Arbiter for its H.S. baseball and softball schedules and a third multi-sport association that uses Arbiter to assign H.S. basketball, baseball, and softball schedules. One of the umpiring associations and the multi-sport association assigns the entire season at one time for the appropriate sport, BUT the second umpiring association assigns its games one week at a time.

Example of one week assigning: At 12:00amEDT, Friday, April 08, 2011, the games for the week starting at 12:00amEDT, Monday, April 18, 2011, and ending at 11:59pmEDT, Sunday, April 24, 2011, are posted and the umpire has until 11:59pmEDT, Sunday, April 10, 2011, to either accept or reject the assignments.

While it is not written into OhioHSAA and MichiganHSAA officiating contracts, it is an unwritten part of the contract that when a game, no matter what the sport is, the originally assigned officials are given the right of first refusal for the rescheduled game. BUT, not the association that assigns but the week. When a game is rescheduled there is not guarantee that the original umpires will be given the the rescheduled game. In fact in the fours years that this association has used Arbitor I have never been assigned the rescheduled date and no of no official who has either.

As one could expect there is a growing number of umpires who are not happy about this situation. The assinger takes the position that it is too difficult and time consuming to make sure the original umpires are given the reschuled games. Remember he is payed a double game fee each day, seven days a week, for the entire high school season, which amounts to quite amount of walking around money if you get my drift, to assign the games.

There is also a growing number of umpires that feel the entire season should be scheduled at once. This would make it easier for umpires to schdule their lives.

This is the first poll that I have conducted so please forgive any mistakes I make. If your association uses an web based assigning program, what is it? Please comment as to whether your assigner assigns the whole season at one time or a week or two at a time. Please state your likes and dislikes. And most importantly do you get first right of refusal on a reschedule game.

MTD, Sr.