Recruiting

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by Pantherdreams

Also I can't speak for your situation but now that I've seen a couple of different leagues and assignors I would say be careful with the idea of earning your stripes. If you've got a good young official you have to get them in and expose them to the level they want to get to as soon as you can give them that experience. I'm not saying take a first year guy and put him in the league championship at varsity. But losing quality potential officials because they are young competitive interested people that get mired in youth games, middle school and bad freshman games for multiple years doesn't help you either. If they see goals as attainable and not just an accumulation of years in an old boys club they will be more likely to stay. They have to be good enough, but once they are they have to given the opportunity.

This 100x.

I would add that the "wait your turn" mentality is also disrespectful to the game itself in that it directly blocks young and talented officials from getting to the level where the game needs their youthful energy the most (6A/D1 varsity and college).

Assignors have to take advantage of the competitive nature of good young officials in order to promote sustained service AND word-of-mouth recruiting.



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[Terrapins Fan]

About 15% of our officials are female. And they are doing very well. The majority of them all work Varsity games.

[justacoach]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

This 100x.

I would add that the "wait your turn" mentality is also disrespectful to the game itself in that it directly blocks young and talented officials from getting to the level where the game needs their youthful energy the most (6A/D1 varsity and college).

Assignors have to take advantage of the competitive nature of good young officials in order to promote sustained service AND word-of-mouth recruiting.
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Truly wish you could impart that concept to the associations around here.
A few years back, when my #1 son was in his 2nd Dleague season, he inadvertently left a few dates open in Arbiter. Got assigned a JV game and a GV game. He dutifully took the assignments (and was probably dinged for using pro mechanics)!
Also got penalized 3 game fees for missing mandatory assn meetings. IOW, he paid for the chance to be shat upon.

[Matt S.]

I've held off replying to the OP because I wanted to read other responses for a few days. But here's my $.02:

1. I would strongly suggest making connections with intramural directors at area colleges/universities. There are most-likely some officials that want to do more than fraternity league games for $8-10/hour... recruit the top intramural officials--that's what happened to me.

2. I started reffing youth ball when I was 18...this is my 18th season on the court. I've been licensed in 8 different states--I've worked a varsity game in 7 of the 8 states. My point is that those that have the 'want to' can and do move up.

That said, the proverbial juice has to be worth the squeeze. In other words, if I was in school (or just out of it) today and wanted to make a few extra bucks, would I get licensed and join an association for $40-50/game? I'm not sure, especially if there was other part time work available at a better hourly rate, that didn't involve getting yelled at.

I firmly believe that recruiting young officials is easier than retaining them...but again, there has to be 'want to' on both sides of the equation (and there have to be AD's and state associations that are on board with the notion of accepting younger officials)

[Rich]

Besides being a veteran official, I'm an assigner -- and I am a firm believer of getting younger people into the mix of varsity assignments as early as I feel comfortable with them and/or the situation. I had a college student work a game that I observed last night and he's one of the best officials I've seen this year -- I've passed his name onto other assigners already.

But keep in mind that I am in the business of filling 348 varsity games a season -- both great and 1* games, both boys and girls. If I schedule a crew to work a 1* game, I'm not interested in hearing complaints about it. I work my share of those and I turn down subsequent great assignments cause I'm honoring my contract.

One thing I've noticed is that many of the bad behaviors in officials come from people who are newer to this world. If I had to list my 10 biggest annoyances this season, 8 of them would come from younger officials.

For example, double booking and then taking the closer / better game and dumping the other one. Another example: Telling me that they only want boys games from me and thinking I should honor this request (even though it's fine if they happen to get assigned to girls playoff games -- they'll work those, of course.) Frankly, there are maybe 3-4 officials who work for me who I honor the "boys only" request (because they are men's college officials and I like having them a couple of times a season) and the rest get to work both or not work at all for me.

I'm only 3 years into this gig now, but I've seen enough to say that it's not as simple as some people think. I've cut loose some really good officials cause I do not like how they take care of their business. I'm paid to assign games once. In my world, dependable trumps excellent.

[packersowner]

Originally Posted by Rich

Besides being a veteran official, I'm an assigner -- and I am a firm believer of getting younger people into the mix of varsity assignments as early as I feel comfortable with them and/or the situation. I had a college student work a game that I observed last night and he's one of the best officials I've seen this year -- I've passed his name onto other assigners already.

But keep in mind that I am in the business of filling 348 varsity games a season -- both great and 1* games, both boys and girls. If I schedule a crew to work a 1* game, I'm not interested in hearing complaints about it. I work my share of those and I turn down subsequent great assignments cause I'm honoring my contract.

One thing I've noticed is that many of the bad behaviors in officials come from people who are newer to this world. If I had to list my 10 biggest annoyances this season, 8 of them would come from younger officials.

For example, double booking and then taking the closer / better game and dumping the other one. Another example: Telling me that they only want boys games from me and thinking I should honor this request (even though it's fine if they happen to get assigned to girls playoff games -- they'll work those, of course.) Frankly, there are maybe 3-4 officials who work for me who I honor the "boys only" request (because they are men's college officials and I like having them a couple of times a season) and the rest get to work both or not work at all for me.

I'm only 3 years into this gig now, but I've seen enough to say that it's not as simple as some people think. I've cut loose some really good officials cause I do not like how they take care of their business. I'm paid to assign games once. In my world, dependable trumps excellent.

Lots of great points here. Dependability goes a long ways in making sure that official get better games. If you are willing to take care of your schedule, you're probably willing to take care of business on the court.

[UNIgiantslayers]

Originally Posted by Rich

Besides being a veteran official, I'm an assigner -- and I am a firm believer of getting younger people into the mix of varsity assignments as early as I feel comfortable with them and/or the situation. I had a college student work a game that I observed last night and he's one of the best officials I've seen this year -- I've passed his name onto other assigners already.

But keep in mind that I am in the business of filling 348 varsity games a season -- both great and 1* games, both boys and girls. If I schedule a crew to work a 1* game, I'm not interested in hearing complaints about it. I work my share of those and I turn down subsequent great assignments cause I'm honoring my contract.

One thing I've noticed is that many of the bad behaviors in officials come from people who are newer to this world. If I had to list my 10 biggest annoyances this season, 8 of them would come from younger officials.

For example, double booking and then taking the closer / better game and dumping the other one. Another example: Telling me that they only want boys games from me and thinking I should honor this request (even though it's fine if they happen to get assigned to girls playoff games -- they'll work those, of course.) Frankly, there are maybe 3-4 officials who work for me who I honor the "boys only" request (because they are men's college officials and I like having them a couple of times a season) and the rest get to work both or not work at all for me.

I'm only 3 years into this gig now, but I've seen enough to say that it's not as simple as some people think. I've cut loose some really good officials cause I do not like how they take care of their business. I'm paid to assign games once. In my world, dependable trumps excellent.

This is good stuff. Thanks for the insight.

Our new assigner this year is 180 degrees from how the old one did it. I'm close to a major metro league in our state, and for years, the former assigner would only give the metro league games to the old boys club and it was really tough to break into. A friend of mine did games for him for 8 years and would get ~1 or 2 metro games a year, instead being sent 90-120 minutes every Tuesday and Friday night with the occasional proximal small school game. That's fine sometimes, but you've got to throw a guy a bone once in a while. The new guy has been so great about getting everyone into the metro league rather than just the old stand-bys. I actually left the old assigner because of so many people with the same experiences as my friend, and in my first year back with this association this year, I've gotten a couple of the metro league games even though I've only been reffing 5 years and doing varsity for a couple. I also try hard to never turn games back, and to always let him know if I free up a night I had blocked and go wherever he asks me to go, so hopefully that will pay off in the long run.

[Blindolbat]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

This 100x.

I would add that the "wait your turn" mentality is also disrespectful to the game itself in that it directly blocks young and talented officials from getting to the level where the game needs their youthful energy the most (6A/D1 varsity and college).

Assignors have to take advantage of the competitive nature of good young officials in order to promote sustained service AND word-of-mouth recruiting.



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First of all, we all know it takes a special breed of person to stay in this job for more than a season or two. Being able to put in the hours, take the abuse, and still wanting to continue is rare. However, for the people that have a love and make it through the first 2-3 years, I can't 2nd this enough. We've lost many a good officials over the last few years because the more established veterans will only do upper level varsity games or only work on nights the biggest games are on. Which leaves the "newer" officials with sub-varsity and an occasional low level varsity. Many of these "new" officials have more than 10 years of experience and have proven to be very capable of doing any high school game. However, have been shown that until the top echelon move on they won't get a shot at the best of games. Unfortunately, people get tired of being told that and eventually leave or find another sport to officiate.
To no one's surprise, they end up discouraging friends and other potential officials from joining the ranks. Word of mouth works both ways.

High school sports sees shortage of officials approaching 'critical' stage | Sports | gazettetimes.com