Decisions for Upcoming Season

[JRutledge]

I have not been through this, but I have a question of you. Why would you not want to work the playoffs? I am not saying that is the actual reasoning for your current situation, but if you were not working enough to get a varsity schedule, do you think that could have hurt your standing or ratings over all? I know in our system in this state the more you work the higher your ratings can potentially be. I am wondering if that might have been the ultimate result from you not wanting to work that many games?

But for the rest of the comments, I think you have to decide why you are doing this in the first place. If you are doing it because you love it or are competitive, I would stick it out. Maybe, just maybe you want to change your goals in this to so that you can get the opportunities you wish, because I can imagine if you say that you really do not want to work playoffs to others, that might affect how you are perceived and indirectly or directly the ratings. I know if I was an assignor and had a lot of guys that wanted to work the highest level, would get the priority and guys like yourself would be thought of after if they really have no desire to work playoff in the long run. For one I have more credibility as an assignor if I give the games to the guys that are working the post season as opposed to the guys that never work that level. Everyone is trying to cover their behinds an one way is to show who is working with a certain background which can involve all kinds of things like years of experience, playoffs and ratings.

Peace

[Hartsy]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I have not been through this, but I have a question of you. Why would you not want to work the playoffs? I am not saying that is the actual reasoning for your current situation, but if you were not working enough to get a varsity schedule, do you think that could have hurt your standing or ratings over all?

Good point. I'm working to get better and attract more Varsity games and playoff chances, just not making that a priority for me. I fully expected to have a better/bigger slate of games given my experience (12yrs) and my ratings improvement. I work 3 or 4 nights a week with JV or Varsity, and would gladly accept more Varsity than JV, but with this new system I was lucky to get ANY Varsity games.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Hartsy

Good point. I'm working to get better and attract more Varsity games and playoff chances, just not making that a priority for me. I fully expected to have a better/bigger slate of games given my experience (12yrs) and my ratings improvement. I work 3 or 4 nights a week with JV or Varsity, and would gladly accept more Varsity than JV, but with this new system I was lucky to get ANY Varsity games.

If it is all based on ratings, that is a horrible system. I would think ratings would mostly help who gets the post season, but if the assignor wants to give a new guy a shot, he/she cannot only use ratings to do get the officials unless you just want to appease the coaches only and not get the right officials.

Peace

[Ed Maeder]

Do you get to rate the coaches? Then why are they able to rate officials? This is a system that will only hurt an officials association.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Ed Maeder

Do you get to rate the coaches? Then why are they able to rate officials? This is a system that will only hurt an officials association.

Here in my little corner of Connecticut, coaches have absolutely zero rating input into how officials are assigned regular season games, however, statewide, they have total control over how officials are assigned to state tournament games.

Note: Believe it or not, coaches usually do a pretty good job of selecting our best officials for the state tournament, including up, and coming, young officials.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Here in my little corner of Connecticut, coaches have absolutely zero rating input into how officials are assigned regular season games, however, statewide, they have total control over how officials are assigned to state tournament games.

Note: Believe it or not, coaches usually do a pretty good job of selecting our best officials for the state tournament, including up, and coming, young officials.

In a state I used to work, it was similar to what Billy described, i.e. the coaches' ratings exclusively determined the pool of state tournament officials. How that pool was then assigned to each round of the playoffs was up to the state office, but the pool itself was determined by the coaches.

Problems: Some (many?) coaches didn't write down any notes after games, and by the time the state office bugged them for votes, it tended to be the familiar veterans they would remember and then cast votes for. So while there were usually enough quality officials in the pool to make for great crews in the state tournament finals, some of the earlier round games would end up with some awful crews. Meanwhile there were young, new, quality officials on the outside looking in.

In fairness to said state, my understanding is that they have greatly increased their observation and evaluation system since I left. Hopefully that means the post-season pool is now being determined by more than just the coaches.