Billy, I'd say that house league rec games up to the 8th grade level and middle school games do not need 3 officials. This is because the ability level of the players and officials working these games is too low for 3-person crews to benefit the game.

Freshman games can be adequately covered by 2-person crews, because freshman players are often slightly better than middle school players in terms of skills and athleticism. If freshman and JV games are played at the same location, but in order, and not at the same time, and the members of the freshman crew agree, a JV official can join them to practice 3-person mechanics. However, freshman games will be scheduled as 2-person games.

I would prefer to have junior varsity games covered by 3-person crews, to give JV officials practice with 3-person mechanics before they move up to varsity, and because JV teams often have some players who could be playing on the varsity team. JV teams will be playing a similar style to their varsity team, so officials can get used to the off-ball coverage that they will need to employ for their varsity games. The level of play will be higher than at the freshman level, with some teams comparable to varsity teams, so it would make sense to introduce 3-person mechanics consistently at this level. This may be the reason why some states, including South Carolina, set a pay scale for 3 JV officials, even though almost all subvarsity games use 2 officials, because they expect that 3 officials might occasionally cover a JV game.

Varsity games must use 3 officials, because the athletes tend to be too fast, big, and strong to be adequately covered by 2 officials. This is especially true for boys games. Off-ball coverage is critical in varsity games, because the teams use offenses that feature heavy doses of screens, cutting, motion, and/or post play, on its own or to set up outside shots, and opposing teams will use any tactics possible to defend this, including illegal tactics. 3-person crews are better at off-ball coverage than 2-person crews, because each official has a smaller area of coverage to focus on, and will not have to look across the court to locate the ball as in 2-person. 3-person crews can also rotate to balance the coverage in ways that a 2-person crew cannot. Because varsity teams can play quickly in transition, a 2-person crew can easily be caught out of position by a quick change of possession, where only 1 official might be in the frontcourt (the former trail/new lead) in a hybrid L/C position. A 3-person crew would have at least the Old T/New L and the C to hold down the fort while the Old L/New T returns to the proper side of the court. 3-person crews are also better in terms of press coverage than a 2-person crew, because the Lead does not have to split the difference between L responsibilities (be even with the last defender) and C responsibilities (stay with the middle wave of players) as he would in a 2-person crew. These reasons are why some states, such as Florida, mandate at least a certain amount of 3-person games in the regular season (3 home games per gender for each school), and others are exclusively 3-person for varsity regular season games (Georgia, NC,SC,VA, and others).

For non-scholastic games, I would recommend 3-person starting at the 8th grade level for travel games, at the high school level for house league rec games, and for any men's league games. This are because travel players, especially 8th graders and above, play at a more competitive level than rec players of a similar age, and would be disadvantaged from a 2-person crew not being able to be in positions as good as those a 3-person crew could achieve. The high school level rec and men's league games would benefit from having 3 officials because 3-person crews can provide better game management and dead ball officiating than 2-person crews, which is needed for games when tempers might run high and where players may not be evenly matched, to prevent unnecessary activity.

Why would I recommend implementing 3-person at the 8th grade travel, high school level rec ball, men's league, or JV levels? I would do this because these levels are competitive and would benefit from a higher level of officiating than 2-person crews can provide, yet with low enough stakes that officials can make mistakes and learn from them without the negative repercussions to their careers that might follow if they were to make similar mistakes in a varsity game (loss of schedule, low ratings, etc.).

Genders ...
 

Be careful here, or that unmarked black helicopter outside your window may be from the American Civil Liberties Union, or the Title IX police.

Note: We take gender issues very seriously here in my little corner of Connecticut. My local board is being investigated by the federal government for inequalities regarding assignments of male versus female officials. Two plus years. Tons of data. Our insurance company wants to negotiate a settlement, just based on the data, not based on any biased intent.

I just mean that boys tend to run faster than girls, on average, and are usually bigger and stronger (not always). That does not mean that girls varsity games should use 2-person crews, because varsity girls are still bigger, faster, stronger, and more skilled than subvarsity girls. What I wrote is as applicable to girls games as it is to boys games.

It really does not matter what we want or what we think is best. The schools that use 2-man for subvarsity do not care that "subvarsity officials need 3-man experience before moving up to varsity." That is not something the schools give a damn about; unless they see the benefit that we can see as officials, their response will be that someone on the subvarsity crew needs to work for free or the crew needs to split the 2-man fee amongst the three of them.

And quite frankly, a lot of inexperienced (heck, even some veteran) officials just watch the ball, and it's very obvious to even non-officials. The ADs will say, "Why would we pay a third set of eyes to just ball-watch?" And on that point, I would understand their perspective. Sure, we as officials all went through that stage and most newbies grow out of it, but again, the schools don't always see the long-term. I've worked my fair share of 3-man subvarsity and varsity games with officials whose heads move wherever the ball goes; every time coaches/ADs notice that, the argument for paying three officials loses merit in their eyes.

If the high schools in SC wanted to only pay two officials for varsity games, I guarantee you that's what would happen. When the schools are writing the checks, they call the shots. And more often than not, they do not care what we think. Obviously the situation in Iowa is much different due to there actually being a shortage of officials.

You are right, they could do whatever they want. But those decisions have consequences. And if you want to maintain officials to work your games and get the officials you want, then you better make some decisions that do not alienate those groups of officials. And schools have to stop acting like we must go along with them, or they will be in a situation where games will not be played at all because you cannot get officials. Or they will complain of the quality.

We already are not getting officials into the arena to begin with. Keep making it harder for the veterans and you will have them making decisions. They can be stubborn all they want to but their attitude is often the reason people never want to officiate or stay in the early stages.

Peace

Well, I guess I'm glad I don't have to worry about that being an issue here. As far as I know, there aren't any schools wanting to cut back to 2-man for varsity. At least, we never hear about it in meetings or other communications. As long as we have our current rating structure and allow the state office to control varsity assignments, this isn't an issue we will run into. We have quite a few other issues to worry about.

Also, motion to ban the phrase "bigger, faster, stronger" from this forum.

SC Official, I understand your position that it does not matter to the schools what we think is best. My statements on where we need 3-person crews and where we should have 3-person crews are more from a training and development standpoint, and what I would consider good practices for an association varsity development program to have. Perhaps this would be a good starting point for officials associations to negotiate with state association (if varsity assignments are handled through the state), schools/school systems (if individual schools sign contracts with associations), or conferences (for states using that system) on arrangements that would be in the best interests of all involved, including the officials themselves. There are many articles on the shortage of officials and the need for new officials.

However, there are other forms of attrition that no one is paying attention to, and that may be eating away at even the varsity level soon. Older officials will retire. Good high school officials will get picked up at the college level, and if they move up to the Division I level or get hired to work professional basketball, say goodbye to using them for high school assignments. They may be able to stay on as association commissioners (Tony Brothers is the commissioner of Peninsula Basketball Officials Association (IAABO Board 125) in Virginia) or as trainers, but they need to be replaced with quality trained officials at the varsity level. These replacements will be taken from the subvarsity level, so there need to be training programs that associations use for both non-scholastic and scholastic basketball to meet their needs. For instance, if a JV official isn't getting enough 3-person experience from a subvarsity schedule, give him a men's league or travel schedule to get him 3-person experience, preferably with other varsity/college officials who are not assigned that day, so he can learn from better officials as he prepares to make the jump to varsity.

JRutledge, I totally agree with you on being an independent contractor, accepting games from different sources, and schools acting as if officials must follow their lead. I am no longer exclusively a member of Board 12 (and have not been for the past year), but I have been joining other boards, and will have some men's league games, if not varsity games, specifically to work on my 3-person game, get to know college officials, and work with them (Matt Myers uses high school and college officials to work the men's leagues that he assigns).

Would the terms "have better athletic ability" or "too athletic" work better?

Who says no one is paying attention? Everything you just typed is stuff I've been hearing (or reading in this forum) for over a decade.

I don't know if the public (or powers-that-be) have been paying attention. Some associations have varsity development programs, where officials are taught 3-person mechanics, work non-scholastic 3-person games attend dedicated camps, and are evaluated for progress to the varsity level. My modest proposal is just for more associations to implement this, and a more expanded vision of what such programs should look like.

Who are these "powers that be" you speak of? Camps in our state are a required part of our licensing. We must attend camps in our particular sports every three years. In basketball, that involves attending 3 person camps (the only sport that has an on-court requirement on some level). There is nothing in the requirements that require we must work scholastic games. And almost always associations or assignors run these camps. I am a certified clinician in my state and I ran two camps for two different associations. I also attended a camp in another state that ran a camp that was organized by the LOA. This has been the case for over 20 years BTW in Illinois. The structure is a little different, but basically, associations have been running camps almost my entire career. Nothing new or special needs to be shared. Remember you just got into this, some of us have been doing this for years.

Peace

WOW! I found this comment shocking! Did some disgruntled female officials drop a dime with the EEOC? How does this apply to Independent Contractors?

Billy on the Law!

Maybe I should move to IL to work ;). Some associations in MD have got the memo (MBOA conducts a camp every year to evaluate its officials), but MD as a state does not use camps to license officials the way that IL (and other states) do, so training is left to the devices of each local association. VA doesn't appear to have camp requirements either, unless Raymond or the other users from the Commonwealth of Virginia have something else to say. I like what you have described, it just needs to be more widespread.

No Virginia does not. Again, you are not bringing up anything new. People have discussed how involved a state should be before. The VHSL is actually pulling back from oversight of basketball officials. They no longer conduct a state eval camp to select new state tournament officials. And for the state finals and semi-finals, they no longer choose the individual officials themselves. They assign each game to an association and the association chooses whom to send. They used to also have a state level newcomers camp but they ceased that a few years ago.

So what you want in a Utopian national high school landscape is not going to happen. States are going to do their own thing, and they have no reason not to. Public school games only affect that respective state, so why should they care or worry about what other states are doing?

Again, don't get sidetracked. Do you have video of yourself from your last camp?

I don't have video from MBOA camp, because I never worked in the gym that was filmed, but I'll ask Que'z if there was video of me at the Level One Camp. If I can get film from Matt Myers or the leagues that I'll be working in next season, that could also help.

Young’uns Want To Know What Drop A Dime Means …
 

Yes.

At the time there was no "master list" listings the names of varsity officials and listing the names of subvarsity officials. The only way for disgruntled female officials to discover how many females/males received varsity schedules was to observe females/males working a varsity game, or ask around the "grape vine", tough to do with over 325 officials. The disgruntled female officials believed that they were being treated unfairly, but had no proof.

They claimed that we were keeping the numbers a secret. It really wasn't a secret. We weren't publicizing the numbers on our website, one just had to ask. The numbers are now on our website.

Right, or wrong, for almost forty years, maybe longer, we've had a "culture" of keeping one's schedule "close to the vest". When someone inquires about one's schedule, the "tradition" was to be vague regarding the number and level of games, probably to prevent jealousies and complaints.

As a rookie official, I remember being asked by another subvarsity official about my schedule and answered something like, "I got twenty junior varsity games". A veteran varsity official, one of our top guys, heard that and later told me never to answer with such specificity.

Even though our numbers, once reviewed, looked pretty fair, with no intent of bias, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "hung onto this bone like an angry dog", asking for document after document, for over two years. Our insurance company now wants to negotiate a settlement.