Ref Shortage
 

Another article about ref shortages due to abuse:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...=.d9f3961727ab

Basketball isn't specifically mentioned. In NVA, that's one sport we have a good many officials at the scholastic level.

My son decided to take up football officiating this year as he says they are so hurting for officials they are moving more and more games off of Fri nights as they can't get enough crews......

Hehe, well as I'm sure your boy will soon discover, there are several reasons that that group has issues retaining officials. However abuse is the major factor.

Of the several high school sports I do, soccer is the worst. It's the only time I've had people take photos, follow me, or even try to fight me. From the richest parts of NoVA down to the poorest, parents think it's a great idea to try the guys in the flamboyantly yellow/green/red/blue shirts (I'm betting that doesn't help either :rolleyes:). I blame the professionals. It's hard to find a game where the referee isn't surround by players who are chewing him out over an obvious foul call. Coaches/kids see that and think "Yeah, that's appropriate, I can do that in my game".

Yet I don't see a fix in the future. Soccer has parents get certified and ref if the kids are U13 and under, but most clubs are trying to do away with that. I think that's what we'll see in the future; parents being forced to officiate so their kids will have umps/refs. Maybe, and I doubt it, they'll finally just shut the hell up.

P.S. I think basketball somewhat avoids the problem because we have a handle on the coaches/kids. You do a quarter of the dissent in soccer in a basketball game and you'll be ejected inside 6 minutes. And I assure you, my group has been heavily recruiting these past few seasons.

Player 989, sounds like you guys need to start using your red cards more! Stqart kicking people out of the game and see how that changes things!

I take your point. No referee should tolerate unsporting behavior. You can't use a Red card on anyone except players in US soccer, but referees have options in every situation. A coach can be dismissed. If spectators are harassing the players or officials, the referee can stop the match and enlist the coaches to deal with the situation. If the coaches can't or won't, then abandon the match. Report the incident to your state association and it should be dealt with. If you find your town is particularly tough to deal with, work for a different assignor. Referees have more power than they realize.

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I know you can't really compare sports, but I've always been amazed at the amount of BS soccer officials are expected to put up with.

Right or wrong, we are not in a country that cares about soccer on some large scale. Most of the soccer officials I know, either played the game or are from another country or speak other languages. So soccer is their sport they play. This is not football or basketball where the country is obsessed over those sports already and you are asking for officials to work a sport they might not understand on some level or even like. To me this is the problem for sports like soccer, volleyball or even lacrosse. Even football in my area is becoming a problem, but that is because schools decided to play on Friday when they used to play many games on Saturday. But the attitudes of parents and coaches are certainly not helping. I am not sure if I did not know what I know now that I would want to do this either. I have been around for over 20 years and doing youth sports is not what I want to be associated with anymore either.

Peace

That is a regional opinion, not a national one. Soccer is huge in the Northeast. More kids play soccer than play baseball. Nearly all of the hundreds of referees in my part of the state are born here to parents who were born here as well. I am rare among them, because I haven't been playing since I was a little kid. I will grant you that soccer is not that popular in some parts of the country, but nationally, it is growing rapidly. I will be at the Region 1 Championships in Virginia in a couple of weeks. Last year when I was there, I met hundreds of other referees, aged between 16 and 35, who were all experts on the game, not working a sport they don't really understand.

Personally, I think the referee abuse and assault problem in soccer is a complicated one. I don't think soccer, as a youth sport, is any better or worse than another youth sport. If I had to rank them, I think I see more abuse in High School basketball than in any soccer games. Upper level youth and Amateur/pro adult soccer is actually better, in my opinion than the same level baseball games. Youth football is notorious and is the only for which I have seen officials requiring a police escort to safely get to their cars. So, I think society, as a whole needs to get on top of the problem of referee abuse and assault, and we shouldn't focus on one sport over another.

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I don't do any youth, adult, or off season basketball. It's just not worth it. When it was at the point that I was handing out more T's and dealing with more unruly fans that the game it's just not worth my time. I can also say that coaches are a big part of the problem. NY State relies on coaches ratings for advancement and I am usually in the middle of the pack, mostly because I don't put up with much, from player or coaches.

I will answer questions respectfully all day, but bad behavior I have 0 tolerance for. I have actually gotten into it with 2 partners in the last 3 years that let stuff go and not address it, then I see them being buddy buddy with a coach during the game and I bring it up. We don't do ourselves any favors. Reffing is an avocation but when you are working a game it's YOUR job.

My expectation is that if you work a game with me you do YOUR job.

Just be glad yall dont work in countries where soccer is called football.

Keep in mind I did not say a single thing about baseball. Baseball is dying on many levels in this country with people from this country. If you are not in your 40s or 50 baseball is not the most watched sport amongst people in a younger age group. Yes there is a regional issue (and the article deals with a regional concern) but it is also related to the overall perception of the sport as well.

Youth sports in general is a problem. I think it is not any more of a problem in any sport when adults have little perspective of the overall picture. I think sports like soccer that involves judgment and not hard fast rules, there are issues with how parents or fans react to calls. Football for example has several different rules that it is clear fans do not yell about sometimes because they are not even clear what the rules that apply. But even in football fans try to yell about an NFL rule as opposed to the youth rules that actually apply. But when you keep hearing stories of assaults or confrontations it does not seem to come from one sport over another. At least locally the issue we have had big time happen in youth football and youth baseball. But soccer is big in this part of the state, but I am not as connected with that sport to know if they have more or less situations overall. I just know in basketball during the summer there is an interaction with fans that never happens during the season.

Peace

I'm with you.

This is one of the few reasons I'm glad I live in South Carolina. We've got plenty of issues (would bet more than most states), but the fact that all varsity assignments come out of Columbia means that we don't have to worry about assigners employing a "don't rock the boat" philosophy of pandering to the coaches. The state office generally backs us up for enforcing sportsmanship rules, and the $300 fine and suspension for ejected coaches doesn't hurt, either.

Our archaic rating system also thankfully does not have a coaches rating component (though there is a peer rating component which presents a whole host of different issues). Giving the coaches the say in who works deep into the postseason is shameful, IMO, and I'll never understand why so many states rely on it.

NY State does this too. Peer and coaches ratings.....what a waste of time.

We have peer ratings here in Connecticut, but it is an imperfect system, I agree. I just don't think there is any great way to effectively grade officials like they can in the NCAA. There just isn't enough money to pay the neutral graders and supervisors to put in that kind of system. My HS supervisors, who play an outsized role in rating officials, also work most of the HS playoff championship games. I don't have anything against them, and they are great officials, but it will always lead to hard feelings and someone will be treated unfairly.

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Two evils and you guys have both of them...yikes. Not sure which one I would pick if I had to.

Plenty of great young officials or older officials working college do not advance far in the postseason in our state partially because grudgeful old guys will intentionally rate such officials poorly, even when they follow NFHS mechanics to a T. No accountability for giving poor ratings unjustly. Part of the reason why most of the officials working our state finals every year are in their 50s and up.

When I was in HS I had a bunch of friends who did the little kid leagues to make some easy money. Nowadays I rarely meet a teenager working a game. They all say it's due to the crazy parents and the coaches who harass them. Say what you will about the "soft generation", but if you're 15, why would want to spend your weekends getting insulted by 40 year old parents?

Then add in the stress when you ref a HS sport, and bam, no one is signing up. I don't know how baseball is, but I've seen it in youth football, soccer, and basketball. It's evil all the way down.

I say we start doing what FIFA does after racism is reported in certain games; we block the games off from spectators. You wanna watch Lil'Johnny play, you sit it down and shut it up.

EDIT: To address the lack of a rating system that doesn't "adequately provide evaluations of referee performance.", the day I see an honest and fair assessment from a coach is the day I ref a perfect game. Send a tape in, pay to have someone analyze the referees, learn that your players connected 30% of their passes, had 15 turnovers, and lost the game their ****ing selves.

13.6 Million ...
 

Basketball 24.4 million participants
Baseball/Softball 23.3 million participants
Soccer 13.6 million participants
Football 8.9 million participants
Ice hockey 3.1 million participants

Soccer is just a thinly veiled attempt to get kids exercised and probably one of the cheapest sport to play and little training for kids to be able to play...a win-win-win for most parents. If pro soccer ever got the money level you see in other pro sports it will explode.

Each board rates their officials their own way. When it comes down to state tournament assignments though, it is 100% how many votes you get from coaches and your assignments are 100% how much Mr Murray knows/trusts you.

One of our Rec Leagues has a pretty good youth, ref development program. They can start officiating as early 13 with the little kids (7/8) with an adult mentor there. I'm happy to say that several of these young officials keep it up into HS and even during their college years during breaks and the summer.

For many of them it's their first paying job (outside of mom and dad).

But, it's certainly not for everyone that's for sure.

Participation in a youth capacity is different than what happens in actual dollars for most communities and schools. I am in an area where every other year a new conference is forming or teams are leaving one conference to join another all because of football. Yes football might have fewer participants (many schools do not even have a football team) but everything in high school sports surrounds football. Teams are not moving conferences because of what is happening with the soccer team. Football in my state for most schools is one of the biggest revenue generators. Basketball does very well for many schools as well. Soccer is an afterthought. Soccer and other sports are lucky to get as many people attending those games as a JV football contest. Just alone in my state, the football and basketball State Finals (which advertises to get officials) are shown on live TV. The other sports not mentioned might be shown live, but you have to pay for the service with streaming video to see those events live. And all of this influences how we get officials and where they come from.

I belong to an organization of organizations called the Inter-Athletic Council of Officials (IACO). IACO is a group of official's associations that bond together to run area trainings. We have only camps and classes for football and basketball. We used to have a baseball/softball camp, but we lost so much money on that event we had to stop holding that event. We have had people try to start camps in other sports like wrestling and we cannot get enough participation and interest. This is also another reason we can find soccer officials that work multiple state finals and in sports like Football or Basketball, if you get 3 trips to the State Finals you are fortunate. But someone in Soccer might have 6 or 7 trips in their career.

Peace

Horse Racing And Boxing ...
 

Agree. But still, 13.6 million soccer participants ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Maybe not in Illinois, but we are certainly a country that "cares about soccer".

Pratt and Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field, in East Hartford, Connecticut (home of the University of Connecticut football Huskies) seats 41,000. USA Soccer has men's, or women's, games there about twice a year, and the stadium is almost filled to capacity for these games. Granted, fans are, for the most part, parents (soccer Moms) with children, or immigrants watching their home country, but soccer is certainly a lot more popular now compared to when I went to high school back in ancient times.

Soccer certainly isn't anywhere near up there with basketball, and football, but it's become a pretty popular sport over the past fifty years. Things change. At one time the biggest sports in the United States were horse racing, and boxing. Look at what happened to them.

OK, then why are they talking about a shortage of officials in soccer? You think people become officials out of thin air? Usually people join a sport because they either had a kid that played it or they have interest in the game. Most newer officials we see here are older than me and usually people that join their sport after their kids have graduated and said to themselves, "I can do that." So yes the number is not bad, but it does not translate into officials. I stand by what I said, soccer is not the this countries sport. I would not say that about Hockey and Hockey at least is followed heavily at the pro or NHL level.

My comment is not about Illinois either. There are states that do not pack the house for youth soccer.

USA soccer? You are using USA, international Soccer as a judge for something in this conversation? Really? Are TV ratings on par with other sports in our country? Michigan and Tennessee fill up their football stadiums multiple times a year with over 100,000 people. And they can and do get ratings even a regional broadcast gets during those games in the Northeast? There are high school football games that get better TV ratings in our local market than the pro MLS team in Chicago. And most major cities do not have a soccer team for a reason. Heck the women's league

Yeah, but they said soccer was going to take over 20 years ago when the MLS came onto the scene. I am still waiting for kids to play that sport on anything other than football beyond some youth and middle school level.

Again the issue is shortage of officials, not how many kids might play a sport at some time.

Peace

Men At Work ...
 

All three of my children played scholastic soccer, and one played collegiate soccer. I can only remember attending two, or three, night games. For some reason, Connecticut high school soccer is played in the afternoon, usually on weekdays. Most people have to work for a living, and most work during the day.

We're having the same problem with our basketball officials. Middle school, and high school freshman, games are usually played in the afternoon (3:30 p.m., 4:00 p.m.). We just don't have enough available officials to cover those games. Some of those games only get one official. Many middle school officials work their middle school game, stay dressed, get in their car, and head to a nearby high school junior varsity game. Others work the freshman game and stay and work the junior varsity game.

If you're available in the afternoon, there is money to be made; basketball, soccer, volleyball, lacrosse, field hockey, rugby, and a few other sports.

Is that why fans are always yelling at me, "Don't quit your day job".

Crystal Ball Needs Cleaning ...
 

And they said that the United States was going to go to the metric system. How did that turn out?

Well here, they play many games at night. These games make very little revenue for either gender at the high school level. Same in small colleges as well. They even play soccer here on Friday nights and still not the focus that football or basketball gets. I have a good friend that is a soccer official and he makes it very clear it is nothing like football.

Since we are on the basketball site, basketball officials in our state is not at all an issue. More than enough to cover games at all levels. Now the quality of officials to cover many games might be an issue, but I am not sure that is bad either.

But those other sports are hurting big time to find people to cover games.

Peace

A pro soccer player would be making "starvation" wages in compared to even the NHL if they werent the a star among stars. That probably keeps most players from continuing on. About 6-7 times less.

Football Drives The Bus ...
 

Agree.

I never paid to attend a regular season, or early round state tournament, scholastic, or collegiate, soccer game.

Football, and basketball, are the big high school revenue producers here in Connecticut.

While football often has the biggest revenues, it also has -- by far-- the biggest expenses of any of the HS sports -- you can outfit a basketball or soccer team for what it costs for the equipment for one football player.

While Football coaches (and those who love HS football) love to point at the gate revenue, I'm curious how many schools are actually net positive for their football programs once all the costs are added in. (I've never seen an analysis for HS, but I have read (can't cite, sorry) that outside the five (?) big conferences, college football is a net cost to the schools. (Recent TV contracts for other conferences could have also changed that.)

My sense is that while football generates more revenue, hoops generates more profit for most schools because of the relative costs. (And while more attend each football game, there are a lot more BB games.)

Also - there are quite a few high schools that receive revenue by selling the broadcasting rights of their football games to local radio stations. I'm guessing this helps fund those programs.

Maybe, but the revenue in football often helps pay the bills for other sports. Baseball, Soccer or even Wrestling does not quite do that. Also many booster clubs help raise money during football games where they do not raise the same money in other sports. Equipment purchases run in cycles. I doubt that there is a vast expense in equipment when you might not buy something but every 3 or 4 years in the first place. Also I see high school football all over the TV and national TV at that. I bet one broadcast on ESPN or some local channel might bring money that none of the other sports even sniff. You are right, there might be more expenses in football or even basketball, but when thousands come to your games over maybe a 100 in other sports, that might be completely absorbed by those sports. Again, I never see a varsity contest in the regular season that might get what a JV football game gets during that same regular season. But I am sure there are exceptions somewhere. Just do not see that the case in this part of the country.

I am sure there are schools that lose money. But do not tell me that a sport that gets a very modest gate is paying for those buses or transportation that it takes to play a season. Football here for example here has 9 weekends. Maybe 5 of those are road games. If you play soccer, you are playing more games. There is more travel in other sports than anything in most football. You have to pay a bus driver and insurance for the transportation as well. If I get 5 to 7 thousand at 4 or 5 dollars a pop, I can make a lot of money just for other things in one weekend. We have not talked about the concessions or other fund raising done. Let us not make it sound like the potential is the same for revenue.

You live in California and I am looking at your games on TV, it is clear that there are a lot of people that attend football games. Probably more than attend many games here. Basketball is really this state's passion more than football, but again if you are a middle of the road basketball program, you probably are not getting a lot of money. For one many of your events are away from home. Unless you host a tournament and make a lot of money at those events, the teams coming might not make much of anything to participate. Or if you make money, they are paying for maybe some hotel or travel so that you can play, but are they making money doing that or just breaking even?

Again we have had an influx of conference movement and it usually at the heart of what football is doing. Basketball almost never seems to be a factor when you look at these changes.

Peace

You need to cut the numbers roughly in half for some of these to account for boys and girls participating. This would provide a truer picture of the relative popularity of these activities at the youth/HS level.

Basketball = 12.2M each
Baseball/Softball = 11.6M each
Football = 8.9M basically just boys
Soccer = 6.8M each
Ice hockey = 3.1M guessing that it's mostly boys

Trial Balloon
 

I'm not saying I've made this shift in thinking yet, but I'm considering it.
Let me preface this comment on the topic by saying there's hardly anyone around here who does more for recruitment of officials than me. I spend more money, my own and our association's, and marshal more resources and manpower to recruit candidates for all sports we sponsor than any neighboring association in our part of the state. Not braggin', just sayin'. Now, that being said . . .
I'm wondering why I and my association are in the recruitment business at all. We don't need more of us. Coaches need more of us. AD's need more of us. The schools need more of us. We don't need more of us.
Our state's Officials Guidebook clarifies that the chief purpose of local association is training. Up until it was added several years ago, our association didn't include recruitment in its bylaws purpose and objectives. Of course, I worked to have it added. Duh.
I have not taken steps to actuate this shift in thinking and effort, but I'm wondering if it would be better to strive to put recruitment on the agenda of the coaches, AD's, and schools. Let them do the recruiting, let them send us who they get, and we'll do our best to train them and retain them as officials.
That would instill a sense of gratitute for serving officials that is lacking on the part of coaches at this time. They're the ones chasing off the candidates I'm spending my and our money and time and effort on. If they're dissatisfied with the officials they get, let them throw their own money and time and work down the drain when they abuse them and cause them to quit.
I'm just about to give up the recruiting business. It's actually counterproductive because it has fostered more an "us vs. them", adversational mentality. It's been all us doing everything to get candidates and then train them and then retain them. The other stakesholders in the equation are doing just about zero, if that. I'm wondering if there'd be more of an "we're in this together" mindset if the coaches and AD's and schools played a role in this whole issue.
They recruit 'em. We'll train 'em. Together we'll be better at retaining 'em.
Just a thought at this time.
You think?

How many other businesses recruit competitors to join the industry? If there were fewer people coming in, it would force the schools to do something...like treating officials better. That could either be by behavioral changes or pay increases or perhaps even other changes.

18 years if officiating basketball from HS varsity down to youth levels during the entire year. So I've seen all the crap we talk about from the parents, coaches and unfortunately the kids. I believe it has gotten much worse in the 18 years I have been doing this. My feeling is that youth associations, NFHS, or whatever governing body in charge has to start to set in motion a zero tolerance policy. Its about time this nonsense stops so the kids can start to have "fun" (sorry I used the F word) and the officials can just do their job and not have to "manage" anyone. It sounds impossible but I wonder what would happen after a year of no tolerance. Kick out the parents, don't allow any coach antics ( I mean none), and teach the kids that they have to just shut up and play. The nonsense behavior from all around has become the norm not the exception. This clearly needs to be reversed. I know I always comment to my partner when we do a game where players play, coaches coach, and parents clap and cheer.... Good game "just like its supposed to be."

I'm curious to know what State this is? "basketball officials in our state is not at all an issue."

My state has over 5000 (Actually 4970 officials at this week is renewal week for the coming season) basketball officials licensed. We do not have a shortage anywhere to working high school sports in basketball. In other sports, yes. But not here. The only issue might be the quality in some places, but there are games being covered all over the place. Even when someone gets hurt or sick, the issue is not if someone can come and fill in, but who can fill in. And I also think because of the training that we do here as well, many officials can step in and fill in the games.

Peace

In Connecticut, we have a shortage.

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I guess it depends on where you are. Being on Bd 8 or Bd 35, you may be short. I would argue that there isn't much of a shortage where I am, until the conferences and schools decide to schedule all their games the same night. This is especially the case when there is a cancellation (i.e. snow) and all the schools want to rebook to the next night, which already has a full slate of games. Our commissioner tells schools he literally has nobody available to officiate their games, unless they want a one man crew on a varsity game. None of the coaches/ADs are for that and then they decide to be flexible.

During the good winters with minimal disruptions, there are very few "all hands on deck" days.

Here is the additional fact. We do not play girls and boys basketball games in the same place as the norm. Often just in the Chicago area and surrounding suburbs, they play a Freshman A & B games (two games) in one gym and a Sophomore (usually the prelim game) before the varsity. So it is not unusual to have 7 officials assigned to one site on any given night. Then you might have 8 different sites or games going on in a particular conference. So that is if everyone one in the conference is playing (16 team model) then that means you have 56 officials assigned on any given night for just one gender of basketball. There are times when there are emergency fill-ins or last minute coverages of games, but they almost always get someone to fill those games even the day of the game. The schools might not get the best of the best every night working, but they get officials that can competently cover the games. And not all conferences are 16 teams. Many are 12 or fewer and I rarely hear of this being a problem to get officials in basketball. Also that means that you might even get some younger officials working levels they would not have worked in the past, but the games get covered.

Peace

That's up to you (and other refs) to manage. Most don't IMO. I do. I also have more coaches not like me because I don't like to deal with garbage. Way toooooo many officials let to much slide that coaches know it's easier to just request me off a game because they have a 75%+ chance of getting guys that will let them and their players act like fools.

When refs complain about a coaches or players behavior and I ask them what they did about it. If they say they did nothing I ask them to stop complaining to me. If they said they did something but the behavior didn't change I then ask them then why did you change your adjudication if you ALREADY drew a line. If they say nothing then I ask them to stop complaining to me. If they did take care of business then I can usually relate because it's the same offenders year in/year out that as officials we just roll our eyes because in part working those games aren't exactly fun sometimes.

That sounds great, but we are not doing this in a bubble. We can give all the Ts in the world if we do not have support by our assignors or leagues or state than it only goes so far of what we can do personally.

I threw a kid out of a game earlier this year for basically trying to intimidate me directly and he was tossed. You would have thought that I had pulled a gun on the kid and was totally out of line based on the fall out after the incident. Well ironically, this very same kid was kicked out of his school for cursing out a teacher at the private school he attended. But if the adults would have not allowed certain behavior, what I did in a game would have never needed to take place. If I was a less accomplished official or someone with much less experience, I might have seriously contemplated getting out of this. But I have been here before and seen this before and was able to overcome the situation. But I did not feel I got support by those involved for not being treated like I was a kid.

I am a grown ass man and wish to be treated as such. I am also not going around treating other adults like they are not adults. But I refuse to treat kids like they are adults when I was not raised that way or act like if they act up I cannot do something about their behavior. But many in power allow that kind of situation to continue even if we use the main tools we have within the game. So I am going to disagree that we cannot complain about it when we are not supported. Because if you give a T then they try to make it about you as the official, not the behavior that caused the reaction.

Peace

Connecticut ...
 

In my little corner of Connecticut: 300 officials, 75 high schools, both genders (with very few exceptions), varsity, junior varsity, freshman, almost all two man crews; coaches, athletic directors, and principals don't like officials working doubleheaders if one of those games is a varsity game, unless absolutely necessary, many middle school programs (both genders). Boys and girls play on different nights, or at different sites (i.e. boys home, girls away, no such thing as a boys/girls doubleheader). Middle school, and freshman, games scheduled in the late afternoon (3:30 p.m., 4:00 p.m.), junior varsity (5:30 p.m.) and varsity (7:00 p.m.) at night. Not many Saturdays (except freshman games, and prep high school games), no Sundays. Very few schools with auxiliary gymnasiums that can seat fans.

We have a few dozen guys that don't work high school games (they just want the "patch" so that they can work their local town recreation, and travel games).

A few guys get hurt, a few guys get the flu, and it's tough to cover busy Fridays. Get a few games snowed out, and it get tough to have enough officials to cover the makeup nights.

Our new class has had about thirty officials the past few years, but that same number leaves for whatever reason (not moving up fast enough), or retires.

We've restructured out rating system so that deserving officials can move up quicker (no minimum years experience to move up, all one needs is talent). We may also start conducting exit interviews to see if we can make policy changes to keep officials from prematurely leaving.

So funny how things are different regionally. In GA, SC, and NC, there are no "girls officials" or "boys officials." You work both genders or you don't work, and 99% of assignments are doubleheaders. In SC there's never really been pushback from coaches or ADs because it's just the way it's always been, and quite frankly always will be. Most of the complainers are officials themselves, but the reality is 95% of varsity games are on Tuesday and Friday nights, and sending two crews a night would cause officials to lose a significant amount of money over the course of the season (no school wants to play girls and boys on separate nights). We don't really have a shortage of varsity officials (whether competent or not is entirely different) that I know of in SC, but that would change if we ever sent separate crews for girls/boys.

I can't emphasize how glad I am that I don't have to worry about what coaches think about me with respect to the assignments I get.

http://www.probasketballreferee.com/...es-300x200.jpg


The official in the middle represents a referee shortage. :rolleyes:

I equate our system to what happens in college. You would ever see a women's official work a men's game. The games are different and what is considered a foul on one is not close to a foul in another on similar type of plays.

Then again I work boys basketball too, so there is no need to get a coach to respect the assignment I get as that is all I work. Boys is the side that is covered extensively by the media. And if I had to do two games in a night, I can tell you the effort would be limited just because doing two games are harder than doing one. I do not get that model, but if it works for those in other states more power to you guys. The same reason we are not asked in this part of the state to work a prelim game and a varsity game in the same night. Players do not play two games in a night typically, not sure why it is an idea that officials should be expected to do the same. Yes it can be done, but are you getting the same effort in both games? I know how I feel doing multiple games during the summer for running clock games. I can imagine how that would be if that was my entire schedule. Every now and then OK, but not every assignment. Maybe that is part of the reason lots of areas have a shortage. IJS.

Peace

I would like to think I give the same effort in the girls game as a I do for the boys (even though much of the girls basketball in my area is absolutely brutal). I have been in pregames though where officials will say "I don't rotate much in the girls game to save energy for the boys" or something to that effect. Is that right? I guess it depends on how you look at it, but that's a cost when you make officials work two games. If the powers-that-be viewed it as such a problem then they would have done something about it, but again there's just no desire to change the status quo, so to speak. I'm not willing to give up a significant amount of money to work half as many games over the course of a season, and we struggle with competence and politics enough as it is in this state. Simply not enough quality officials to move away from the current model IMO.