Wanted, Reward, Dead Or Alive ...

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SC Official

Rich is an assigner and official in one of those "18-24 month" states, I believe.

I don't get it, personally. Assigners are creating more work for themselves by giving games that far out because there certainly are a high number of turnbacks. It's unreasonable to expect an official to know what his/her availability will be on a specific date months/years in advance.

In my state there are many schools that probably don't even have their schedules finalized for the impending season. Getting varsity games 2-3 weeks out is the norm here, 1-2 weeks for subvarsity. I wouldn't want to get games much earlier than that; there are too many things that can change with respect to my availability.

When in Rome...

It is easy whenever Friday is a premium date for all officials (at least on with boys games). Everybody works on Friday for the most part at all levels. Tuesday is another boys typical game night. If you work girls basketball, you likely get a combination with the other dates. If you are a college official, you likely will not working high school games on Saturday for the most part.

So yes you do know what you are doing here when that is the standard. My goal as an official early in my career was to work a varsity boys game every Tuesday and Friday during the week. I get it that it is different, but not hard to deal with when those are things that have been done since I was in high school which was in the 80s and 90s.

The games for the coming season I started to receive almost 14 months in advance in some cases.

Peace