Observation: Impediments to Moving Up

[rockyroad]

Quite often the biggest impediments to moving up have nothing to do with basketball or physique. A good friend - and an amazing official - lives in a small town in Alaska. Nearest airport is about a 3 hour drive away, and then flying to any major college towns is another 5 plus hours. He's not going to get many D-1 contracts regardless of how good he is...another good friend has a job that requires him to be on call (transporting federal prisoners) and available on short notice - again, going to impact whether D-1 commissioners want to hire him.

[mtn335]

Originally Posted by Rich

Interestingly enough, I see coaches at their best behavior at state finals. They're on TV and they know that every move they make is going to be seen and scrutinized. It's harder many times to work those coaches in the 3rd or 4th rounds.

When we worked our state game 2 years ago, neither coach said a word to us the entire game...and it was a 1-2 possession game the entire way through.

In Washington, some atrocious coach behavior (I heard two coaches confronted each other at the division line, though it was third-hand) drove an extreme emphasis on coach behavior and coaches' box enforcement this year.

[Dad]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Another thing that is not discussed often, but really advancing is also doing all those things and proving you can handle the bigger stages. If you cannot handle a big rivalry game or a game that has high profile coaches and players, people are not going to just give you a State Final. You have to at least in Illinois probably work for a lot of different people and prove yourself in tournaments, big conference games before that becomes the norm in your schedule. It took me a long time go get the so-called better games until I worked with a lot of different people and showed I could handle those situations. Yes getting calls right matter, but you also have to prove yourself to coaches when they yell at you and everything is not solved with a T. You have to be able to communicate or know when to stop communicating with coaches. It is often the things you do that have nothing to do with calls that can help and certainly hurt you. We have many official that can get a block/charge call right but when questioned about it, have no idea how to talk to a coach and have not earned the respect of the coach to say anything.

This is the same reason you see the same guys on TV all the time, because the coaches trust them and do not get calls about those official's calls often. But if they put a new guy in that spot, they might just start complaining about those calls more often. Since the IHSA was referenced, that is the process that people want to see you prove here. You might have a good schedule for one assignor, but do you have a good schedule with all the other assignors? Are you working the big games in other conferences? Are you working the better tournaments in the area? Or are you working the start up tournaments (for the officials) as your Christmas schedule? And most of all, why is an assignor going to use you over a guy that the coaches trust and do not have complaints about? Are you a good partner? Does an official that has been very experienced have to babysit you during a game?

It is so many things I hardly have time to cover them all, but it is not always about a call. Even if you are big, you might have to do some other things to prove that will not be a constant problem.

Peace

Great points here. Everyone has the ability to call a great game as you move up the rankings. I've seen some great JV/V officials who just start folding under the pressure when you blow your whistle and then wonder if any sound came out.