Maybe you need a different crew.

I assign for 24 schools. I don't even look at coach ratings, even though there are available to me. I find them unreliable as a measure of quality.

When In Rome ...
 

Wow. Since our assigner started using Arbiter several years ago, we are lucky to get assignments two, to three, weeks in advance. We can often see "pending assignments" (light blue on "blocks" page) several weeks out, but they don't get to be "assigned games" until just a few weeks before the actual assignment date. Our assigner takes a lot of time matching up the best officials with the best games, and things change, especially with teams as the season progresses. Teams that are supposed to be good at the beginning of the season often don't pan out, and vice versa.

Back in the olden days of getting our assignments through the United States Postal Service, we would get all of our season assignments at the beginning of the season, with changes (through land line phones) mainly caused by bad weather, illness, and injuries.

Crews ...
 

Until I joined the Forum, I had never heard of this "crew" concept, it just doesn't happen here in Connecticut (I worked with over thirty different partners this past season). I could see advantages and disadvantages with this concept, but never considered that a crew could drag a talented individual official down the toilet.

Dumb Luck ???
 

Coaches ratings (we don't do coaches ratings) are not used by our assigner for regular season, and conference/league post season, assignment purposes, instead he uses peer ratings, and input from an observation team.

Coaches votes are used for assigning state tournament games. With few exceptions, I've found that coaches do an excellent job of selecting our best officials to work state tournament games. As I said, there are a few exceptions every year, a nondeserving name, or two, that gets on the tournament list, and a deserving name, or two, that doesn't get on tournament list (out of the sixty local guys (and gals) that make the boys/girls tournament list from our local board).

Conference schedules are pretty much a rotating schedule and they know the conference games pretty much off the bat. The non-conference can change and so does some tournaments, which are only given to certain individuals anyway. And many conferences you know who is going to be good or not so good. And the rivalries never really change.

And even back in the days, the games given in mail were still given a year or more in advance. The contracts would come a few months before the season.

Peace

I already have games in February 2019. If I'm alive.

I will assign 18-19 this summer.

Rivalry ...
 

Amen.

We don't even register with our state board (and consequentially, officially with our associations) until July of every year, so it's impossible to assign games prior to that, of which I am glad. With my college games rolling in from August through November, there is no way I can provide availability to my HS assignors until November.

Vernal Equinox ...
 

Same here, although it might be in late spring, or early summer. Our annual dues are always due March 1, so it can't be earlier than that.

Hartsy, how does that work, being assigned to one crew? Just one crew (of two or three) all season, or are you assigned to several steady, regular crews? What happens if one member of the crew is not available for an offered assignment?

If your assigners use Arbiter, can you block partners?

I work 70% of my games with the same two officials. Worked 5 postseason games together.

I also try to get as many as I can assigned as an individual. I think its useful to work with different people when I can, but a lot of assigners want to make 1 assignment, not 3.

I find it sad that places exist where HS sports officials have to be scheduled 2 years out. This is HS sports, after all.

As long as the schools know their games, I guess that is a natural consequence of having many competing assignors....they all want to get their games covered with the good officials before they're gone.

Here, the schools don't have a clue which dates they'll be playing at home until the summer before the season. They know they'll be playing league games on certain day but they don't know the opponent or whether they'll be home or away on those dates.

Well, I create my league's schedule. So there's that. :)

If you have control of that too, then it makes it easy.