2 person varsity crews this year

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

This is especially true for boys games ...

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.

[ilyazhito]

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.

[SC Official]

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.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SC Official

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

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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.

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.

[ilyazhito]

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?

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

...

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.

...

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.

[The_Rookie]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

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.

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!

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by The_Rookie

Did some disgruntled female officials drop a dime with the EEOC?

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.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

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.

Are the HS officials in your association independent contractors or employees of the association executive board?

If they are truly independent contractors, then no one is obligated to assign them to anything. They don't even have to receive one assignment the whole season. The independent contractor agreement in NV specifically states that you are not guaranteed any assignments.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

If they are truly independent contractors, then no one is obligated to assign them to anything. They don't even have to receive one assignment the whole season.

At the time, our assignment commissioner (a paid employee of our local board) was bound by our rules to assign each "good standing" (dues paid, fees paid, certain important meetings attended) official a "range of games" (number of assignments) dependent on one's ranking, which, in turn, was based on one's rating, which was based on peer ratings, written exam, meetings attended, and availability. The rankings were also used to determine varsity, or subvarsity, status.

The disgruntled female officials were not really concerned about their number of assignments, but rather, on their status as varsity, or subvarsity, officials. A few believed that their status should be based on years of experience, as well as their ability. Years of experience was not part of the status equation. Never was, in terms of guaranteed varsity assignments. We never had rule that said "ten years in means guaranteed varsity assignments" (we did have a rule that stipulated a minimum number of years to get some varsity games, or a full varsity schedule, that rule no longer exists). This very small group thought that they were "spinning their wheels" working subvarsity games and never getting a varsity game. They believed that it was their gender holding them back, not their lack of ability. But this was happening to low ability guys as well as low ability gals. Due to the lack of a well publicized "master list", they couldn't know whether there was gender discrimination, or not.

Since then, we have changed our system to a system based on observations by trained observers, with no posted "range of games" (number of assignments), but on the discretion of the assignment commissioner based on the observations. Trained observers also decide varsity, or subvarsity, status. We also have a "master list" on our website. We can now see who gets varsity games, and who gets subvarsity games (but not the number of assignments).

The independent contractor tag has been loosely tossed around our local board for several decades. I'm not sure that it's used in a truly legal sense.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Are the HS officials in your association independent contractors or employees of the association executive board?

If they are truly independent contractors, then no one is obligated to assign them to anything. They don't even have to receive one assignment the whole season. The independent contractor agreement in NV specifically states that you are not guaranteed any assignments.

That's what I thought.

And discrimination laws (Title VII) don't apply to ICs (at least at the federal level), so assigners can use pretty much whatever criteria they want in making assignments.

[LRZ]

In recent years, there have been several court decisions holding officials to be employees, not independent contractors, of the state's scholastic athletic association. I think two of them arose here in eastern Pennsylvania. And, too, a regional NLRB decision to certify a union for officials, as employees.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by LRZ

In recent years, there have been several court decisions holding officials to be employees, not independent contractors, of the state's scholastic athletic association. I think two of them arose here in eastern Pennsylvania. And, too, a regional NLRB decision to certify a union for officials, as employees.

Wouldn't that all depend on the nature of how the games are given or how officials are paid? If you are paid through an association directly, I know that can lead to some violating employee rules if you pay them a certain amount of money and you are not taking out taxes and social security in your payment. I know several associations I belong to took out certain langauge in their Constitutions to avoid the appearance of having any assigning directly for the membership.

Also, there was an organization (that assigned another sport) that was hit with a hefty tax bill when they were paying officials directly and were not giving the proper tax information or reporting that they were paying officials directly.

I am certainly not saying this is not happening, but I wonder if the issues in those cases are related to other issues like I mentioned. I know many employee laws are state laws that some jurisdictions have to follow. Federal law is a different issue, but usually, they are related to taxes and paying social security properly from my understanding.

Peace