Sectional Play Off game
 

I have been officiating for 17 years. I earned play off assignments in my 4th year. I work 2 states, Maryland and West Virginia. In WV, the coaches choose play off officials, in Md, our Executive Board chooses. I passed on play off assignments by choice in favor of younger officials.
I was picked for a play off assignment in WV for the 1st time. I was both shocked and thrilled. I am 61. It does make you feel like the hard work pays off.

Congrats.

What does a Sectional to you mean in that part of the world? Just looking for perspective.

Peace

Sectional playoffs are the first two rounds of the playoffs to go to the state tournament. The next is the Region's if you win the regions, you go to State Simifinals in Charleston.

OK, cool. Well DFIU for sure. Have a great time and congrats again on the hard work.

Peace

That is awesome. Passing off to the young and getting your first in WV. Congrats Stud!

Congrats, and good luck.

What area/teams do you call for in WV?

I love systems where coaches have input and yet don't know the first thing about officiating. But congratulations, nonetheless. It's easy for some of us to get cynical after so many years and it's nice to see people looking forward to these experiences.

We're putting 340 miles on the car next week to work our first two playoff games. In the process we'll likely drive past about 30 other games happening on that night. :)

"I passed on play off assignments by choice in favor of younger officials."

I give you a lot of credit for being so unselfish, and at 61, you still have one or two good years left--not many, but a few! (I'm 67, so I can say this.)

Congrats! Enjoy the game!

Amen to this! We will be driving past many games as well Rich :mad:

I can't even fathom driving this far.

While the driving and commute on a daily basis are no fun here in NVA, distance covered for me seldom exceeds 30 miles round trip - and most times it's a lot less.

Hope you don't get this guy as one of your coaches! :eek:

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That's so crazy to me. Rural Wyoming is not so kind to officials, though the mileage checks add up-

We're lucky here too. The farthest regular-season school from my home is 25 miles.

Little Corner ...
 

Fifty-five miles for me (one way trip).

In SC we can set our mileage limit however high or low we want and get sent to any school within that radius. The default is 75 miles one way, but we're normally kept within 60 or so assuming we leave it set that high.

Before the playoffs the SCHSL tries to be sneaky and reset all the mileage limits to make it easier to assign games.

We set our own radius here. If I only wanted to work in the conferences where I live, I could do that and would probably only get about a dozen dates.

If I want to work 50+ varsity dates a season, I need to spread my radius out further. Most of my games are within an hour, although sometimes I go further. We have "regular partners" here, people we work 60% to 90% of our games with (depending on the crew). Each of them lives about 40 minutes from me, so sometimes I go to a central meeting point, which is where our trip actually starts.

I would work 5 games a year at the varsity level if that was the case or work the same 7 or 8 schools over and over again. I drove about 50 miles yesterday. I will be going about that on Friday. Then I will be about 15 miles away on Saturday. It all balances out.

BTW, no mileage pay for any of that. Only the playoffs gives mileage and that is like 75 miles round trip.

Peace

Most of our games are within 25 miles of home. We do have one school that's a 90 mile drive one way.

And then there's the occasional weekend where I have to get on a plane to go work. Done that twice this year.

Now I live in one of the largest population areas in the country so school are all over the place. But when I lived in rural Illinois, going 90 miles was not out of the question unless I wanted to work only a handful of times and going an hour away is very common as well in that part of the state.

Peace

I have 16 nights this month and will drive 1500 miles total.

It's New England, You Can't Get There From Here ...
 

Sometimes it's a matter of actual mileage, and sometimes it's a matter of travel time through congested areas. The Connecticut River runs right through the middle of our school coverage area. There are only a few bridges that cross the river (and two ferries that don't run in the winter). If I have to cross the River during rush hour, it doesn't matter how little the mileage is, it's going to take me a long time to get through traffic with few alternate routes. My car can't fly over the River.

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Yeah, sure. And someday we'll be able to see people while we're talking to them on the telephone. Wait ... I'm being told ... When? Nevermind.