Association/Board Issues
 

Been approached to run for a seat on my local association board.:eek:

What are the top 3 issues that your local board/association is currently facing?

Thanks!

If I had to guess:
1) recruiting new officials
2) retaining new officials
3) actually getting officials to confirm their assignments with the schools 3-4 days before the game (this comes up at EVERY meeting).

Agree on #1 and #2.

We don't do #3 at all. It really isn't necessary.

Before the season, the schools confirm the accuracy of the games as entered in Reftown, much like officials accepting assignments. A few days before the game, the schools get automated reminders of upcoming games. If something has changed, it is up to them to notify the assignor of the change. If they don't and the officials show up anyway, the school still pays for the game and the officials still get paid. Out of thousands of games per year, it is extremely rare that an official shows up to a game that isn't there. More likely, the schools forgot to notify the assignor that a game was added.

It may not be necessary in your opinion, but the opinion of the Powers That Be(tm) in my association is that it is necessary. Therefore, I follow the direction of the Powers That Be(tm).

Confirmation ...
 

My local board uses Arbiter to assign games, but our assignment commissioner still insists that we confirm all of our games with our partner, and the school.

I my case, I don't mind confirming because I don't get a cell phone signal at work, nor do I get email at work, so I make sure, in my confirmation email, that the athletic director knows exactly how to get in touch with me if there is a change in the game assignment.

Several times, over the past several years, I've received emails from athletic directors, in response to my confirmation email, that read something like, "Thanks for the confirmation email. It reminded me that I haven't contacted your assigner, or the officials, that the game time got changed to ...".

https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=OIP.M2b...95&w=103&h=102

February 1, 2015

BillyMac
30 Main Street
Springfield, CT 06999
Home Phone (860) 000-0000
Cell Phone (860) 999-9999 (No Signal During Business Hours)
Email: [email protected]

Environmental Chemical Analyst
Acme Environmental Laboratories, Inc.
587 East Main Street
Springfield, CT 06999
Business Phone (860) 888-8888 (Ask For BillyMac)

This is to confirm that I will officiate the boys varsity basketball game at East Oshkosh High School
on Wednesday, February 11, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.

Please contact me if there is any change in the schedule. My contact information is above.
During weekday business hours, it is best to reach me at (860) 888-8888. I do not have access
to the internet, nor to email, nor do I get a cell phone signal, at work.

Sincerely,

BillyMac
International Association of Approved Basketball Officials
Little Corner of Connecticut Board

That should be standard procedure no matter what type of assignment system is being used.

When in Nome, be sure to do what the Nomans do.
Here the Referee is expected to confirm first with the crew, and then confirm the crew to the AD -- email preferred, but cellphone call for any iLuddites in our midst. We are cautioned not to pummel the AD's with unnecessary emails, so we are told to do it like that and in that order. He only gets one--from the Referee.
Works great. Catches occasional errors or oversights that otherwise would've gone unchecked without that system. When guys don't do it, bad things happen. Enough so that we're probably gonna be sticking with this modus operandi.

Infallible ???
 

Not according to Camron Rust.

Back, in the twentieth century, when assigning was done with land line phone calls, and the United States Postal Service, we occasionally had too many officials, or no officials, showing up at games that may, or may not, have been properly scheduled. Back then, in the olden days, it was imperative that officials confirmed games by the United States Postal Service, or by land line phone calls, to prevent mistakes.

Now that we've moved to computerized assigning, and email contacts, there is a far less likely chance for a mistake to be made, but sometimes human error will rear it's ugly head, and that's why it's important that officials still confirm their games.

I spend about fifteen minutes, every Sunday, sending emails to confirm games with athletic directors, and partners, for games coming up that week. I feel that it's time well spent.

I have been part of a situation where a college game, requiring significant travel, was double booked. Each school's assignor thought they were responsible for covering the game. We only found out because my crew chief called the school to confirm 24 hours prior. The non-working crew was still paid for the game.

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I've been working basketball in my local association since 1998.

Never once have I ever contacted a school to "confirm" an assignment. Not once has there ever been a problem because I didn't do this.

Schools receive the assignments through the Arbiter, just like I do. If they've changed the schedule or haven't included a game on their schedule, it's on them to contact the supervisor.

If they don't and we show up, they are obligated by the NCHSAA to pay a full game fee.

Yes, we contact our partners to confirm uniform and travel.

When in Rome.

I don't confirm assignments with high schools, but I do check their web site to make sure my info matches. There have been a couple times I've had to call my assignor to make sure everything was kosher.

Also, the only time I've been in a car accident while traveling to a game, after leaving the accident and getting to the game site, it turned out there was a scheduling snafu and there was no game.

So yes, in a perfect world, we should trust no one fat fingered anything, but in reality things go wrong. And I sure would have preferred knowing ahead of time I didn't need to travel to that school instead of getting into an accident travelling somewhere I didn't need to be. My little $40 check for a not working a game didn't make up for the $200 deductible I had to pay.

BTW, I've worked in I.T. my entire adult life, I am intimately aware of how data is only good as the fingers that input it.

It would seem a lot of these issues are communication issues caused by school AD's assigning officials directly. Would having a board assignor dole out the games not make things easier?

I know I only deal with an AD when I show up and don't know where my dressing room is or I need a fan removed. All of my games come from one guy who has to deal with the leagues/covneners/ AD's

That seems more logical, to me.

In the NYC publics we hear a lot about arriving on time (30 minutes before game time). I shoot for 45. I'm happy if most of my partners are there between 20-25 minutes before scheduled tip.

Each of the past two seasons I've had a partner arrive at least 15 minutes after the scheduled start time of a BV playoff. One guy got hung up in traffic. The other is chronically late so I never assumed he would show up on time.

Definitely agree on retraining/continuing education.

Another is complaints on what assignments officials get and who gets what assignments. Therefore, our board is in the very early stages of trying to implement a ratings system.

If/when that becomes a reality, the ratings will be Top Issues #1, 2 and 3, I'm sure!

The statewide ratings system. We spend half of our meeting time b*tching about it. Just beating a dead horse.

Losing younger officials to college.

Not getting enough younger officials.

I really, really hope you (and your association) don't consider this to be a "problem".

If anything, it should be seen as point of pride, in a "we're so good at developing new guys that they can move up to higher levels very quickly". If you approach it from that mindset, it could be a potential selling point to help with your "not getting enough younger officials" problem.

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the main reason we had a bunch of turmoil in my local area was because the commissioner and some his main posse' resented college officials. It was an utterly ridiculous stance.

Maybe the association wouldn't be losing officials, but instead sharing them with college conferences, if they felt more welcome and appreciated for the availability they do give to the HS association.

Have you ever refereed in Nome? I have.

No. Kenai.
Heard stories about you Bering Strait School District referees from back when ShishmarefRef was active on this forum. Travel to away games throughout an 80,000 square mile school district? Wow!

Our problem is that some college officials (not all, not even most) feel they're too good to have to meet the requirements of membership of the HS association....the meetings/training requirements specifically. They want to be excused from those requirements so they only have to pay their dues and show up at games. That is not entirely wrong. But, as soon as you start giving exemptions for things, the problem just grows when everyone has a "good" reason to not be at the training.

It stems from Bitterness and Resentment...Many College Officials that do HS are the ones selected for playoffs and so others feel "Blocked" Its ugly and not right but it is the case:eek:

Our state changed the "experience points" requirement of the rating system from seven years to now five years, in an effort to get younger officials calling varsity sooner. A valiant effort, but the better idea would be to pay more, overhaul the rating system completely, and stop discouraging younger officials from working in other leagues, college or not.

So, the powers that be in South Carolina do consider it to be a "problem."

Our volleyball association has plenty of college officials and they are subjected to the same training requirements the rest of us are.It's not an issue here-why do your college officials make such an issue of the training requirements Camron Rust?

Because they most likely already have to do enough training for the college leagues they work in. Granted there are some significant rules differences, but a lot of information given at training meetings can be used at both levels. I am sure most guys working at the college level are dedicated enough to learn the rules changes and POEs from the NFHS and apply them when and where they have to. I have been to 3 college conference meetings already and the NCAA meeting. As bad as it may sound, I really do not have the time or inclination to go to more meetings than I already have to and frankly, any HS meeting is going to be at the bottom of the priority list.

I have most heard of that when officials that do almost all college show up for tourney time. They're not really HS officials but take the playoff games. Some areas (states/association) have a minimum number of regular season HS games required in order to be eligible for post season assignments. I think that is a good idea. Our minimum is 10, which, I think, is still a little low but at least it is something.

The time it takes. And the fact that much of it is more basic then they need. But, some of it is applicable to all.

Pretty much that.

In a perfect world, proven officials, whether accomplished at the college level or even post-season achievements, would be given some credit and not be required to participate in all of the training.

However, once you go down the slope of excusing training requirements, you have more and more people wanting exemptions, some for completely unrelated reasons. We only have a couple of exemptions. College officials get credit for one meeting if they have a college game on a meeting night, but only one. We even have people that ask for exemptions because they had a game for a different sport. Some want credit because they had to work their regular jobs.

In my association's most recent development, we spent half our meeting tonight talking about Arbiter blocks, ZIP codes, scrimmages, and Thanksgiving tournaments. When we were supposed to be discussing Rules 9 and 10 the entire time. :rolleyes:

That bolded portion easily takes care of the problem.

Also, blame the assignor, not the official, for the italicized portion. "Teddy V, if you want to work play-off games, you have to give us at least ## regular season games."

My primary HS association has 2 clinics & 4 meetings throughout the season. We are required to physically attend at least 2 events, one them having to be one of the clinics. The meetings themselves are recorded and streamed live. You have to sign in and watch the remaining meetings (either live or recorded). An outstanding use of technology, IMO, while also recognizing the need to have some level of in-person participation.

Based on all I have read about your state run association, they need to go ahead and make their officials employees since they want to control every facet of their officiating careers.

If I were a college official in SC, my only HS officiating would be for the private schools. I would tell the state public schools association to kick rocks.

I prefer telling them to pound sand, so as to reduce the likelihood of an injury that they blame on me. :D

1. Getting people to come to the business meetings to discuss our financial situations.

2. Getting people to participate like give presentations and run for positions.

3. Trying to keep younger officials to keep officiating.

Our associations do not assign per say so they are getting training mostly in our meetings, not getting games or having the leadership require any things to get games.

Peace

My first thought when I saw this was something I heard soon after I took a management position the first time in real life: "The only thing worse than training someone and losing them is not training them and keeping them."

There is a lot less complaining in our association now that the assignor forces college officials to work the required minimum number of HS games to get a playoff assignment.

Those who say you are losing guys to college, how many college games can those young guys really get anyway? We have guys around here that do college, but even some of the better guys that have not reached D1 do not get really anymore than 20 to 25 college games. I would not want to work only that amount of games for my entire season.

Peace

Yes, that's an aspect that is forgotten. Last year was my most prolific college season, working 15 NCAA and 10 JuCo games during the season, plus a JuCo post-season game. My JuCo lost one of the 3 teams local to my area. So though it appears my final NCAA schedule will increase, my JuCo schedule will decrease. I will still have quite a bit of availability for my main HS association, especially on weekdays.

If I were to get to a point that I was working more than 25 college game (JuCo & NCAA), I would stop working HS and volunteer to be an evaluator and fill-in in cases of emergency.

I hope I don't offend people when I say this. We have a bunch of bitter old geezers (and some not so old officials) in our state who think they should be entitled to get "quality assignments" rather than having to earn them. Our rating system is such that an official's ratings by his peers counts 25% of the total rating. As you can guess, it's not hard or uncommon for these officials to give poor peer ratings out of spite for a younger official or an official that works college basketball–and that harms those officials significantly. The "extreme" ratings (highest/lowest) are not dropped, either, so if you get one "failing" rating by a peer, it's not going anywhere.

I can believe it. I got into officiating late (37), but after my first year I knew I wanted one day to be a college official. So I had the unique vantage point of an old geezer being treated like a young "hotshot" by some of my HS colleagues. I worked my first NCAA game at the age of 44.

So I am one to speak in defense of, and support, those young guys who have college aspirations. They keep me on my toes and I find them to be assets to my HS associations.

Agree.
Not really. The assignor has no such control on an official getting a state playoff spot if they get the minimum. The assignor doesn't control the minimum number nor does he control the state level assignments.

In VA, there are a whole bunch of play-off games that come before the state tourney. And the assignors submit names from their association whom they want considered by the VHSL commissioner. VHSL only assigns state-level quarters, semi's, & finals.