Wanted, Reward, Dead Or Alive ...

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Think about the effect of having a pipeline to put most new officials on varsity games in <5 years. To make room for them, you have to push people out the other end (those would mostly quit rather than step back to JV). Then, when the next generation of new officials wants those varsity games, you'll have to push the last group of "new" officials out too. You'll effectively force careers to be no more than about 10 years and will need an entirely new set of officials every 4-5 years. With as shorthanded as many groups are, you really can't afford to do things that reduce your numbers. You have to keep the older generation in just to cover your games. It is a balancing act. It is more of a problem with the younger generation expecting to shoot to the top fast. It isn't unique to officiating, it is a problem everywhere.

Well, both our perspectives are good arguments for why mandatory experience requirements are dumb. In a perfect world, assigners should be able to use their discretion to decide when officials are (not) ready for varsity, or whether certain officials need to move down or move on. Every situation is unique.

It would never work in my state. The rating structure is too ingrained in the culture.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I went to a camp on the East Coast for a college assignor and I was the oldest official when it came to years of experience. Most officials there had been officiating under 5 years and had college assignments. So we are either going to have to face the reality that some people progress faster or live in the world thinking it takes everyone more years than we once thought to get to those opportunities. All I am saying is be very careful what we assume as we move forward. There are more resources available for officials now than there was when many of us started. That does not mean that there are some unrealistic officials out there both newer and older. But some arbitrary year of experience for varsity is silly. I worked with a guy this year at a camp that was his first college camp and he was better than 90 percent of the guys I have worked with over the last 5 years. Now his downfall might be his youthful look and dealing with certain situations, but there are officials that have 15 years or more experience and are not as competent to deal with similar situations.

I'm with you. Ideally there shouldn't be any "mandatory" experience years and it should be up to the assigner to use whatever criteria (s)he values (like college officiating). One-size-fits-all policies just don't work. But unfortunately with states/associations that have rating structures like mine, experience requirements are unlikely to go away.