Big Baller Forfeits

[BigCat]

Originally Posted by SC Official

Are you referring to how officials should handle him? Because in summer ball (which I hardly work any of) especially I guarantee you that I am NOT ignoring him, and if the tournament director wants to chew my ass for it, they can find another official.

Maybe this was a camp for the officials, I don't know. But I wouldn't tolerate that BS in a high school game, there's not a chance I'm tolerating it for the pennies we make in AAU.

The moral of the story is don't do AAU. He's high profile idiot. There are many more. There's no penalty for being an idiot there. The directors care about their tournament and view referees as a dime a dozen.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by BigCat

The moral of the story is don't do AAU. He's high profile idiot. There are many more. There's no penalty for being an idiot there. The directors care about their tournament and view referees as a dime a dozen.

Of course, if referees and assigners would stop selling out to the TDs for money, maybe, just maybe, they would view us as more than "a dime a dozen" and stop pandering to coaches who "paid to be there." On the flip side, I can't really hold it against officials who want to make money; I'm just not willing to work 2-man (typically what off-season ball is around here) for pocket change while being expected to put up with all the nonsense. And in my experience, most good referees aren't either.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by BigCat

The moral of the story is don't do AAU. He's high profile idiot. There are many more. There's no penalty for being an idiot there. The directors care about their tournament and view referees as a dime a dozen.

I think it depends on who is running the tournament and who is assigning the tournament. I just worked a tournament where it was a camp and we were told to handle our business. The officiating was looked at as an asset and not a liability. There are more than enough tournaments where they can worry about where the officiating is coming from. But the reality is it only as good as you want it to be. You only do not respect the officials, it gets around. Even in the large area I live there are officials that refuse to work games in AAU (including myself) without some backing and support by the people assigning.

Peace

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I think it depends on who is running the tournament and who is assigning the tournament. I just worked a tournament where it was a camp and we were told to handle our business. The officiating was looked at as an asset and not a liability. There are more than enough tournaments where they can worry about where the officiating is coming from. But the reality is it only as good as you want it to be. You only do not respect the officials, it gets around. Even in the large area I live there are officials that refuse to work games in AAU (including myself) without some backing and support by the people assigning.

Peace

I agree that a lot of it depends on who the assigner or TD is, but the reality is there are too many assigners and TDs whose philosophy is "don't rock the boat" to keep the assigning gig/keep teams with s*ithead "coaches" coming back and paying.

I do think you'd agree with me that a camp setting is often different from a non-camp setting. The camp directors want the games officiated like sanctioned games in order to best evaluate the campers, so they make that clear to the TD up front that they will be taking care of business if necessary. Of course, plenty of camp directors are spineless and will tell their campers to pander to the coaches. Ironically, the camps I've been to where the latter has been the case have more often been high school team camps vs. AAU-type events. But the high school camps have real coaches who answer to an AD/principal and thus you seldom run into issues, anyway.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SC Official

I agree that a lot of it depends on who the assigner or TD is, but the reality is there are too many assigners and TDs whose philosophy is "don't rock the boat" to keep the assigning gig/keep teams with s*ithead "coaches" coming back and paying.

I do think you'd agree with me that a camp setting is often different from a non-camp setting. The camp directors want the games officiated like sanctioned games in order to best evaluate the campers, so they make that clear to the TD up front that they will be taking care of business if necessary. Of course, plenty of camp directors are spineless and will tell their campers to pander to the coaches. Ironically, the camps I've been to where the latter has been the case have more often been high school team camps vs. AAU-type events. But the high school camps have real coaches who answer to an AD/principal and thus you seldom run into issues, anyway.

I will say it this way. Officials talk. When a tournament or a certain tournament becomes a certain kind of where it is a cluster, then the word gets around. And one thing I always notice is that a certain level of official stops doing these games anyway. Guys that have accomplished some stuff, usually leave these games alone anyway. There are always going to be the money official that will do multiple games so they can get a few hundred dollars, but they will not necessarily get the quality. But these tournaments are not going away. And that attitude is not going away. But the tournament I worked it was clear the TD or organizer was not worried about what the coaches felt when the officials in question were better than they could normally get in that situation. And this tournament was with teams from all the different factions of AAU (Nike, Adidas, UnderArmor) that hardly ever play each other.

Peace

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BigCat

The moral of the story is don't do AAU. He's high profile idiot. There are many more. There's no penalty for being an idiot there. The directors care about their tournament and view referees as a dime a dozen.

AAU usually has a dress code for coaches. There definitely was not one for this game, so I'm not sure this was an AAU event.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by Raymond

AAU usually has a dress code for coaches. There definitely was not one for this game, so I'm not sure this was an AAU event.

I'm as guilty as anyone of using the blanket term "AAU" to refer to any non-interscholastic travel ball.

Originally Posted by Raymond

AAU usually has a dress code for coaches. There definitely was not one for this game, so I'm not sure this was an AAU event.

AAU has become slang for most non-scholastic off-season games such as this tournament was.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by AremRed

AAU has become slang for most non-scholastic off-season games such as this tournament was.

That is very true because teams that play AAU do not only play in actual AAU tournaments. Which is why you have some different rules or different standards for who is playing in the tournaments.

Peace