Video Request: Kentucky vs. Kansas State (Sweet Sixteen)

[Rich]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

Well how else are you supposed to engineer your staff roster the way you want it to look?

I suppose you could also apply a controversial and legally tenuous residency requirement. Wait.....I’m being told.....


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I've been through some weird things in 31 years. I've been in my current location for 16 of them now, but I hit 5 states in less than 10 years and it's amazing the gyrations some groups will go through to protect their own.

As someone who hires for schools, I don't care if an official moves into my area tomorrow. I want people who can work, nothing more. And I've found that some officials who have gotten some big time assignments (even state finals) aren't people I want working for me.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich

... I don't care if an official moves into my area tomorrow. I want people who can work, nothing more.

That's why, here in my little corner of Connecticut, we've moved from years of experience as a requirement to move up to varsity assignments, to observations, observations that can be done during preseason scrimmages, to properly assign an official who has moved into our area, to a varsity schedule, if he's skilled enough. If he has an IAABO background, he doesn't even have to be observed, he just keeps the status he had with his previous IAABO board.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

That's why, here in my little corner of Connecticut, we've moved from years of experience as a requirement to move up to varsity assignments, to observations, observations that can be done during preseason scrimmages, to properly assign an official who has moved into our area, to a varsity schedule, if he's skilled enough. If he has an IAABO background, he doesn't even have to be observed, he just keeps the status he had with his previous IAABO board.

I moved to Wisconsin and gave an assigner a link to a YouTube channel that featured a game I worked the previous year. That was enough to get a 25-game varsity schedule my first season.

Beat that, IAABO people.

BM, I admire your local board’s efforts to be more welcoming, but until you drop the grade sheets and become more subjective, my guess is that new guys will continue to be on the outside looking in with respect to their schedules. How many college evaluators do you see at camps with grade sheets? They know who can work just by watching them for five minutes.

Protectionism is why I’m probably not going to work while I live in Rhode Island next year. Cutting through the red tape in places where it’s thick is exhausting.



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[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

I admire your local board’s efforts to be more welcoming, but until you drop the grade sheets and become more subjective, my guess is that new guys will continue to be on the outside looking in with respect to their schedules.

Almost all of our 300 plus officials, veterans, rookies, varsity, junior varsity, freshman, middle school, are observed two, or three, times a season by trained observers (twenty-plus experienced guys, and gals, who have served on our board's training committees, and who have been selected as state tournament officials), who write a short report regarding appearance and conditioning, mechanics, team work, judgment, and game management. Feedback is given if asked for.

All of us use Arbiter to rate our partners, on the same qualities stated above. Anonymous ratings numbers (and averages), and comments (if made) can be viewed on Arbiter by officials a few times each season (Arbiter is "opened up").

At the end of the season the observation team gets together, and discusses each official. While peer ratings might be utilized, the observations by the trained team members are given the most (by far) weight. By the end of the meeting, each official is determined to be varsity eligible, or subvarsity eligible.

We've been doing it this way for about three years, or so (after using a strictly numerical system involving exams, meetings attended, years of experience, peer ratings, availability, etc., for over thirty years), and we all seem to like the new system, that is, I haven't heard any complaints, not a single one.

Observation team members that observe on their off nights get a discount on their annual dues. Most observations are made at game assignments (varsity partner and subvarsity officials). Our assistant assignment commissioner, who gets a stipend ($3,000, he also assigns preseason scrimmages, and Special Olympics tournaments), coordinates all the observations.