What is NIRSA? And if it is off-season basketball, no would will be worried if officials are alumni.

Uh, if you’re not in undergrad or grad school, I’m pretty sure you won’t be working at any NIRSA tournaments. :rolleyes:

Just my .02. If you haven't even worked a varsity schedule I wouldn't be traveling long distances and paying chunks of money for camps. I would focus on local camps, usually the local association puts together a list of camps and many are designed for 1-3 years of experience.

I had to google NIRSA but I would not work a tournament or anything else for anything intramural, however I basically know nothing of this organization. If there are summer league tournaments or leagues that assign 3 person (hard to find) I would jump all over those as a method to get used to the mechanics and rotations.

I don't live on the east coast so not sure about distances as things are much more compact so it might not be so much travel, but I would still stick with local opportunities especially if the assignors or higher level referees in your area/association have a development opportunity.

I'm at UMD now. I'll probably be going to The Catholic University of America for graduate school, or to another Washington, DC university's graduate school. The reason I mentioned being an alumnus, because I'm not sure if CUA is a NIRSA member school (or if the other DC universities are, for that matter). If CUA is not a NIRSA school, would I still be allowed to officiate at NIRSA events?

You should ask Jason or Kurt all of these questions that you're asking on a public forum.

I have no idea. This isn't the right place to be asking those questions. Do you even officiate intramurals on your campus? You'd probably have to start there to even think about going to NIRSA tournaments because you probably need the approval of whomever the intramural boss on your campus is. And if you aren't contributing to your intramural program, why should the boss allow you to represent his/her program in a tournament?

I did work intramurals this past season (I worked all the way through the quarterfinals) for Jason Hess, but I do not know if I would be allowed to officiate with NIRSA if I attend a non-member institution.

Returning to the OP, I expected there to be more reviews of DMV area camps. I have been to the Level One Officials camp last year, and can attest to the high quality of instruction there. This camp is a very solid teaching camp, because Que'z combines video of other games, control situations, feedback at your games (this camp was combined with Kevin Nickleberry's coaching camp at Howard University), and gives you the opportunity to work games after the camp ends, for additional evaluation and feedback. I went in not knowing anything of three-man mechanics (other than what I read in the IAABO manual), with no experience of working any sort of 3-man games, to holding my own at a tournament at Stevenson University on August 5th (the Saturday after the camp ended). After I realized what was required of me in 3-man, I was able to confidently make (correct) calls in my PCA, and felt comfortable working 3-man games. After the Level One Camp, my intramural games became easy, from a mechanics point of view, because 3-man had become second nature. If anyone is in the DC area, and has recently started officiating, go to Level One! As soon as Que'z makes information on his camp public for this year, I'll post more. Many of the instructors, including Que'z himself, have college experience, including at the D1 level (MEAC).

I don’t know who Jason Hess is, but wouldn’t you think he’d be a better person to ask these questions?

Also, not going to pretend like I know a lot about intramural officiating or your abilities, but if you only made it to the quarterfinals on your campus, wouldn’t that mean there are quite a few officials that your boss thinks are better than you? Normally the officials going to NIRSA tournaments are the top ones on their campuses.

It was more to do with scheduling than ability (I had an exam on the day after the semifinals were played), and sometimes it is just a numbers game, like in the state playoffs. Jason himself got to the 3rd round of the MPSSAA playoffs (he could have reached the state finals, but there are just too many good officials in MD to guarantee a specific one a state finals game).

Back to the OP subject, I posted a review of a good teaching camp in the DC Metro Area, and am looking for more similar posts.

Teaching Camps in just the DMV? Well, Mid-Atlantic Officiating. Yeah, I said I'm not going back, but that's because I only do tryout camps now. It's an "ok" teaching camp.

MBOA has a camp at the Naval Academy. You can find the info on phillyref. I went there years ago. It was pretty good. Helped me out.

Gotta be honest though, handholding you through this isn't good for you. Just throw yourself out there and don't be afraid to screw-up. At teaching camps. You fail at tryouts and you screw yourself over.

Anyone been to or familiar with camps in Texas? They have a large set of camps throughout the year with some big names like Curtis Shaw. Unsure of the nature of these if they are strictly tryout or teaching.

Pretty sure anything with Curtis Shaw's name on it is a try-out camp since he has about 6 conferences. From what I've seen, they all cost $500-600, lodging not included. Officials I know personally, who have traveled to his camps, say they are meat markets.

Curtis Shaw Camp's (COG):
The staff is nice and you can learn a lot if that's what you're into. But it's clearly a tryout camp. For the cost you do get room and dinner, which is a hell of a lot more than what other D1 camps give you. You work 6-8 games in 3 days, so good luck here.
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You do get lodging, and you get two meals. The rest is on you.

As for a meat market...yeah, that's what it is. The one I was at had over 100 people at it.

The cost definitely seems high at first sight but including room and dinner is a pretty large savings and seems to put the camp more on par with others. I assume that you either tell them you are coming with someone and are roomed with them or randomly assigned a roommate? Is the tournament associated with the camp at the hotel or within walking distance?

Roommates are assigned when you get there. If you want to room with someone specific, tell at the on-site registration.

No, the hotel is not within walking distance. However, it was a within a 10 minute drive to both gyms.