Wanted, Reward, Dead Or Alive ...

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SC Official

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.

We have a structure too. My point was that we are going to structure ourselves out of having officials to cover games and keeping officials. Or what should be the most important thing, get the very best on the games regardless of who they are or where they might come from. Now here any assignor or conference can hire anyone they want that is licensed. They do not have to use any criteria officials to hire someone for any level game. But for the playoffs we have a structure where the longer you have been in the game, they hire those with certain experience criteria. I do not have an issue with that policy to some extent, but waiting for people to get 20 years in before you assign them major tournament games should not be a standard. Telling official that they should only work so many state finals and now we move on from you is not the best way to have the best officials in the most high profile situations. Standards are great, but let us not have standards that automatically make the deck stacked against some people when they might be the most talented.

Peace