Papa's Got A Brand New Bag (James Brown, 1965) ...

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Don't all of these kids deserve the best officials available at that date and time?

Should mostly white officials be assigned to mostly white games? Should mostly black officials be assigned to mostly black games? Should mostly Catholic officials be assigned to Catholic school games? Should mostly female officials be assigned to girls games?

Officials already make those decisions and I am sure they make those decisions within your area as well as other areas.

In the Chicago area, there are officials that refuse to work games in certain areas. And yes those areas involve a certain demographic or certain cultures they would not see in others.

I lived in a western suburb for over 15 years (after moving from central Illinois). The western suburbs are mostly middle to upper middle class and not very diverse in many areas (some are but work with me). I knew officials in those areas that would never go to Chicago, for example, to work in the city that has a lot of predominately Black and Hispanic areas. I knew officials from the city that did not want to go to a lot of suburbs because they did not like the style of play in those other areas. And many officials simply liked to work where they lived and did not like the travel. All those personal standards had consequences good and bad.

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Again, don't all of these kids deserve the best officials available at that date and time, regardless of the gender of the players, or the officials?

Officials have the right to decide what they are going to do unless you are going to pay them enough to make that decision harder. There are only 7 days a week and I am sure between work and family if I am available 4 of those days, I will decide on some level if I am going to work anything. Because the alternative is that they might not be available at all. I guess we have to make some real choices as to what we require. I know officials that simply want to stay rather close to home and there are assignors here that will make that happen because they have enough schools and games to allow that to take place. Many officials never pursue working for certain assignors simply because of the location of their schools.

Peace

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

Officials already make those decisions and I am sure they make those decisions within your area as well as other areas.

Your post describes the benefit of something that I naively asked a few weeks ago, why work for more than one assigner.

We don't have that benefit here in my little corner or Connecticut. If one wants to work high school games there is only one assigner, and you work under his, and the board's, rules (one in the same).

The last "independent", non-IAABO board in Connecticut merged (actually a hostile takeover) with my local IAABO board about fifteen years ago. Connecticut high schools are now 100% covered by IAABO, with it's rules, and local territorial boundaries.

Up until this new choice (boys, girls, both) our blocks were quite limited. You could block out days, and times, of course. You could also block out schools, or teams of that school, for "conflict of interest" reasons (when I taught in our local school system, and coached middle school basketball, I blocked out the local high school). Up until this recent "gender choice" change there were no other blocks "officially" available to us. Certainly not for distance, school size, quality of play, etc.

If an official is having a particular problem with a certain coach, or a certain partner, one could discuss this with the assigner and work it out "unofficially".

Other than what I mentioned above, we really don't have any other choices.

That's why I was puzzled at this recent (gender choice) change. Up until now (with very few exceptions), we pretty much worked the games that the assigner wanted us to work, no questions asked.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Your post describes the benefit of something that I naively asked a few weeks ago, why work for more than one assigner.

We don't have that benefit here in my little corner or Connecticut. If one wants to work high school games there is only one assigner, and you work under his, and the board's, rules (one in the same).

We do not have the luxury to only work for one person at all times in this area. Maybe if you are a lower level assignor you can get away with that on some level, but a varsity official cannot. No assignor I know is going to give you 40 varsity games just in their conference with at most 12 to 16 schools. You are only likely got get anywhere from 3 to 5 in many situations realistically. So you have to work for someone else unless you want to work a very minimal varsity schedule. Also for playoff consideration and not always stated explicitly, the more places you work the more you could be used or sent to different locations and that means more opportunities there as well. I know the state assigns people that have experience and are known by multiple leagues so when you work the playoffs, it is not as much of a total surprise you showed up in that location.

Here is the other part of this. We have the largest consortium for Arbiter in the country called the "Chicago High School Basketball Association" or CHSBA That has several assignors and several conferences at both high school and college level being assigned through this Arbiter site. An official is not going to get hired by just anyone on the CHSBA just because they are registered on that site. I would have had to likely either go to the camp of a particular assignor or have a conversation where I show a desire to work games for them. So it takes some work or networking to get assigned by a particular person. If I never suggest I am interested in working for a particular location, it is unlikely I will even be asked to work games. I work for a person that assigns a large high school conference and an NAIA and JUCO league. He would not assign anyone to his college league or high school league if you did not go to his camps. It is just not going to happen on its own. So if he has a requirement to work his conference like who else you work for and when then I would have a decision to make. I work for college assignors that make it clear they want your Saturdays made available to them more so than any other day of the week. So anytime I get a high school game on a Saturday, I will give those games back for the most part if I am offered a college game. There are high school assignors that do not like you to give back games, but it is a chance I have to take and I do not in advance take any high school games on a Saturday to avoid this potential conflict.

At the end of the day, these are my decisions. I could say, "I will take whatever is given" and that could result in some consequences for those opportunities.

Peace

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

If one wants to work high school games there is only one assigner, and you work under his, and the board's, rules (one in the same). Connecticut high schools are now 100% covered by IAABO, with it's rules, and local territorial boundaries.

Members of my local board were recently reminded that we must "live in" one of the two counties that our local territory covers, or you can't belong to our local board (veterans were grandfathered in, we used to have "dual membership" status, no more).

That presents another lack of choice. No longer can we officiate where we work, went to school, etc., if we don't live and work, went to school, etc., in the same local territory (two Connecticut counties).



Does it sound like I'm an independent contractor, or am I self employed?

Or course, I can take my skills elsewhere. I do have choices to work recreation, travel, AAU, some middle schools, out of state, college, professional, Olympics, etc., that are outside the "IAABO Universe" (Note to self: Write superhero screenplay entitled "IAABO Universe").

Note: I like my local board, and I've been treated fairly by my local IAABO board, even under the strict restrictions that we work under. I'm a journeyman official and I get a full schedule of games, boys and girls, even some high level games. I even get a few votes every year for the state tournament, boys and girls, just not enough. A few (two, or three) long trips each season (less than an hour away), but most of my games are within a thirty-minute drive. I've taken advantage of the massive number of outstanding educational opportunities offered to me. I've been treated fairly by our rating systems. I've worked under four different assigners over thirty-eight years (two short term, two long term) and have been treated extremely well by all of them. Meetings are mostly educational in nature, with little "business". Yeah, it's a monopoly, but it's a monopoly that's treated me well. I really can't complain.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Members of my local board were recently reminded that we must "live in" one of the two counties that our local territory covers, or you can't belong to our local board (veterans were grandfathered in, we used to have "dual membership" status, no more).

That presents another lack of choice. No longer can we officiate where we work, went to school, etc., if we don't live and work, went to school, etc., in the same local territory (two Connecticut counties).

....

Definitely not independent contractor status; sounds more like a Communist system.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Raymond

Definitely not independent contractor status; sounds more like a Communist system.

Communist? No. Socialist? Maybe. We still vote for our local board leaders. Sometimes there's more than one person on the ballot. Connecticut, after all, is a very blue state. It's in our blood.

It's actually more like building hotels on both Boardwalk, and Park Place, and owning the Pennsylvania, B&O, Reading, and Short Line railroads. Everybody else still has a chance, but do they really?

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Raymond

Definitely not independent contractor status; sounds more like a Communist system.

But I can work as many recreation games as I want, anywhere in Connecticut.

[bucky]

Come on Billy. With the exception of one, I feel that every question you asked in your OP was rhetorical. You know that there is no perfect method to all this officiating stuff. You included a lot of "should"s in there and you know the answers. Luvs!

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by bucky

Come on Billy. With the exception of one, I feel that every question you asked in your OP was rhetorical.

Busted.