I should have stated that this often took place when 3 person was coming in. My first varsity game was a 3 person game. The next season many of the games were 3 person, but not all. By my third year, almost every game was 3 person at the varsity level.

Peace

We're seeing that here, too. Within the last 3 years we've gone from 15% 3-person to about 95% 3-person -- to the point where I'm confident I won't work another 2-person game the rest of my career (I'm not counting summer games or youth games, which I work once or twice a year) unless I fill in at a lower level.

When I was starting, a lot of officials had never worked 3 person. So I was just as knowledgeable about that system as many veteran that had been working 2 person their entire career and did not know. So that was my in. Now I was not as good of an official, but I knew what to do in that system to get by. That is not so much the case anymore. Veterans know what they are doing and if you don't, now you can screw things up in everyone's eyes. Usually it takes officials about 5 years where we can "hide" them in a 3 person system as everyone including the coaches know more about what we do than they did when I started 20 years ago. And this is really the case with video the way it is now used.

Peace