Officiating in the ABA, update

[Raymond]

I have a couple of friends with whom I used to play pickup ball on a regular basis who played in the ABA. So that should tell you the level of competition.

I also know of one official who worked ABA games. He was a barely competent JV official, and I am not exaggerating.

Now, let's talk about the combine. Do you think you could afford to travel all the way to San Diego (airline tix, rental car, hotel, dining out), especially for a league that probably pays somewhere between $75-$125/game? I know I can't and I live fairly comfortably.

Do you know any reputable and/or accomplished officials who work in the ABA? If not, that should tell you something.

[JRutledge]

I will say that I have met Tom a rather long time ago. The officials that work the ABA at this time are often not officials I would consider to be top-flight or D1 caliber officials. The ABA was sold early on as a viable alternative to the CBA but is nothing like that now for an official's standpoint. Usually, officials have used this to get themselves into a higher league, but often has no direct pipeline to those levels in any way. But hey, if you do not believe me or others, try it yourself.

Peace

[IncorrectCall]

I'd echo what others have said. The officials that I have seen working ABA games - I would not feel comfortable working a Division I game with. Nor DII, DIII, and barely JuCo, to be honest.

[ilyazhito]

Alas, I thought the ABA would have changed for the better since it last appeared in the forum in 2010. That makes my non-scholastic options for working 3-man mechanics even more limited (pro-am leagues and unpaid assignments in men's leagues). I believe that any AAU officials would be the same quality as the ABA officials, if not worse, even if I was able to persuade the local AAU assigners in the DC area to only use me for 14U games and higher in 3-person crews.

If pro-am in the DC area has good reliable officials, I would enquire into working that, just to get consistent 3-person experience.

I seem to be in a catch-22 in that I need to be more comfortable with 3-person mechanics to work varsity and eventually small college games, but there are very few reliable options to work 3-person outside of varsity games. I'll ask around about pro-am, charter school varsity, and lower-tier private school varsity ball, because if I can get some of those games, it might give me the experience needed to ease my jump to higher-tier varsity and/or college ball.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

... it might give me the experience ...

Nothing, absolutely nothing beats experience. Yes, one has to know the rules and the proper mechanics, and figure out the local politics of getting assignments, but the best way to improve is to work games, and work more games, never mind the level.

I can't offer advice on how to get three person games, Connecticut is basically a two person state, but back when I was starting out, almost forty years ago, I worked as many games as I could get, partly for the money (I had three college bound kids, and a low paying (at the time) teaching job), but also for the experience. Nothing beats making lots of calls (right and wrong), dealing with different types of coaches, working with both good and bad partners, observing better officials work higher level games, and seeking advice from such officials.

I worked games on several different levels: public middle school, Catholic middle school, high school freshman, high school junior varsity, travel games, middle school recreation, high school recreation, mens recreation, church leagues, Jewish leagues, AAU, summer leagues. If there was a game somewhere, and if I was asked, I worked it.

I even kept working these games after I started getting high school varsity assignments, and after public school teachers in Connecticut got better pay. Why? To see more plays, to call more plays, and to work with, and observe, different officials that I could learn from.

Eventually I started giving up most of these games, only giving up Catholic middle school assignments a few years ago when I started having ankle and knee problems. The past few years I've only worked high school varsity games, but may move down a level for some of my games during the upcoming season to unofficially mentor young officials in mid and late afternoon (I'm retiring from my day job as a chemist in seven weeks) middle school, and freshman games.

How does one improve? Work games. Work games. Work games. On any level as long as there's a basketball and some baskets. Three person. Two person. Even one person. Just work.

Yes, keep your head in the rulebook, and in the mechanics manual. Keep going to camps and clinics. But be sure to keep working, and then work some more.

The absent-minded maestro was racing up New York’s Seventh Avenue to a rehearsal, when a stranger stopped him. “Pardon me,” he said, “can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?” “Yes,” answered the maestro breathlessly. “Practice! Practice! Practice!”

[johnny d]

In Chicago we have a few ABA teams that actually have some considerable talent, including D1 players, overseas players, and a few who have even had a cup of coffee in the NBA. When a few of the better teams play each other the basketball can be quite good. However, even in those games, there can be a lot of nonsense going on. We also have a number of teams that are glorified pickup teams.

There are a number of men's D1 officials working the games here, but there are also officials that cannot work girls varsity basketball working the games too. The standard pay, and my understanding is that this is league wide, is $400 for a game. This gets divided amongst the 3 officials. Here, each official gets $133 and the crew chief gets $134. I hear other regions divide the sum differently. The rules are a hybrid of NCAA-M and ABA specific rules. The games are 4 x 12 minute quarters. You still need to get paid cash, before the game or you are instructed not to work. Never take a check. To this day, officials still get stiffed.

They would get better officials here, on a more consistent basis if they raised the pay to at least what a D3 or NAIA game pays, and if they did not cancel games on game day without paying the officials. Only good thing about the league here is they do play a lot of Sunday games too. That is when the better officials work, since most of them do not have college games that day.

[ilyazhito]

Update: I recently got into the ABA thanks to doing a combine for pro basketball officials in Florida, and having the regional coordinator for my area see me in action. This may have happened because the DMV area has added more ABA teams, and needs more officials as a result. The ABA now has regional coordinators for officials in different parts of the country who conduct viewing sessions for officials, hire them, and assign them to.games in their area. I've done an ABA scrimmage, and have seen ABA officials in action in person, and can conclude that most are good high school and/or college officials, with 1 guy I know currently working Division 1 basketball. I'll provide more updates as the season goes along, but it looks like the ABA has done much to clean up its act.

[Rich1]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

there are very few reliable options to work 3-person outside of varsity games

For all you new people out ther -- there are always options for working on 3-man mechanics. Most weekends in your area there is a youth league / travel ball / AAU type tournament or set of games that use 2-man crews. Make some connections with experienced refs and volunteer to work 3-man with them. They will get the benefit of having a 3rd partner and you get the double benefit of getting to practice and getting suggestions for improvement. Its a lot easier to focus on learning the mechanics in a slow 5th grade girls game on the weekend than it is in a highly competitive varsity game on Friday night.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by Rich1

For all you new people out ther -- there are always options for working on 3-man mechanics. Most weekends in your area there is a youth league / travel ball / AAU type tournament or set of games that use 2-man crews. Make some connections with experienced refs and volunteer to work 3-man with them. They will get the benefit of having a 3rd partner and you get the double benefit of getting to practice and getting suggestions for improvement. Its a lot easier to focus on learning the mechanics in a slow 5th grade girls game on the weekend than it is in a highly competitive varsity game on Friday night.

Agree. Just make sure it’s ok with the assignor of the paid crew first.



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[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich1

... there are always options for working on 3-man mechanics. Most weekends in your area there is a youth league / travel ball / AAU type tournament or set of games that use 2-man crews. Make some connections with experienced refs and volunteer to work 3-man with them. They will get the benefit of having a 3rd partner and you get the double benefit of getting to practice and getting suggestions for improvement.

I hate to be the party pooper, but if I were assigned quadruple header travel or recreation games on a Saturday afternoon, or an "off" weekday night, I'm not so sure that I would appreciate being asked to work the games with 100% perfect mechanics (I didn't say that I would say no).

In most games of this nature, especially in multiple games, guys here in my little corner of Connecticut will often use "modified" mechanics (switch on fouls only when convenient, report fouls from outside (way outside, like from under the basket) the reporting area, bounce the ball across the lane on throwins, doesn't matter who reports the timeouts (bumping), doesn't matter who inbounds the ball after intermissions and timeouts, closest spot after violations and fouls often means easiest spot to inbound with no movement across the basketline, no pregame official's conference, no pregame coaches and captains conference, no checking the scorebook, five minute halftimes, etc.).

Plus, guys (with many exceptions), that often work these games may not even know proper mechanics, and will forever be recreation and travel officials. We have experienced veteran guys on our local board who are only dues paying members to be able to claim a "certification" that allows them to work travel and recreation games, in some cases to help pay household bills (they may also want to avoid long distance travel, commuter rush hour traffic, have more control over their officiating schedule, and avoid the "politics" of being an active board member (attending mandatory meetings in a far away town on Sunday mornings (many are willing to pay fines not to attend), business casual dress to games, showing up early before games, or staying late after games, to evaluate officials)), and will block off every single day and night on Arbiter, never being assigned a middle school or high school game.

It's very often show up on time, hopefully in proper uniform, do the utmost best one can do on getting all the violations and fouls correct, do the utmost best one can do to keep the players and coaches under control, use "modified" mechanics, survive the games, clear the gym in time for the next series of games, get out, and get paid.

Certainly not a situation conducive to learning proper mechanics (although it's conducive to seeing lots of play situations), especially when multiple games may be scheduled an hour, or an hour and fifteen minutes, apart.

This is not meant to be a criticism, I was once such an official, it's just a fact around these parts. At one point I was working about a dozen recreation and travel games a week, plus my high school schedule, to put money into my kids' college fund, pay my mortgage, pay my car loan, and put groceries on the table. One often does what one has to do to keep one's head above water, and when one has a marketable skill, with the law of supply and demand in one's favor, go for it (and we don't get paid by the hour).

Teach science all day long. Coach basketball after school. Hustle to the other side of town to officiate a high school age recreation league tripleheader. Then asked to use perfect mechanics in a game where my partner probably doesn't want to use perfect mechanics, a game in which I'm not being evaluated by anyone, a game where the coaches, players, parents, fans, and the town's department of recreation director, are just pleased to have a varsity official in the gym instead of just a warm body?