We have a new policy put in place this year in my state.

As always, Act of God cancellations do not obligate a school to pay an official unless the official has already left for the event, at which time a partial payment is due if the event hasn't started.

For example, the official (who lives 30 minutes away) is notified three hours before a game that due to weather conditions, the game is cancelled. No payment is due.

If in the same situation, the official is on the way or has arrived but conditions do not permit the contest to start, the officials are due 1/2 a game fee (IIRC, I have never had this happen). If the contest starts and then it is cancelled, a full game fee is due. (Only a fee for game 1 of a multiple game event is due if cancelled during the first game).

What has changed is with non-Act of God cancellations. Per the state association, any of these cancellations outside of 10 days from the event mean no payment due. Any cancellations within 10 days require the payment of the official if the official does not pick up another assignment for that date (must be that date).

This largely came about by volleyball teams overscheduling officials for tourneys and dropping officials when they realized they had too many officials for the number of teams.

I have a few examples of this from my assigning this season (all within 10 days).

1) Team notifies me the day of a meet that the meet is cancelled due to a band concert that night. I pushed for the official to be paid (until another official was sick and bailed and I was able to use the cancelled official as the replacement.)

2) Team notifies me that the meet is cancelled because of a scheduling conflict with the facility for that date. Guess what, I'm pushing for payment for the official. Your inability to schedule your facility isn't a problem my official should be punished for.

3) The one I'm dealing with now was a school having a water main break, which means they can't use the running water at the facility so they cancelled a meet. (They still have the team practicing in the facility though). To me a water main break is an Act of God so I don't think I will pursue this one.

A couple leagues around me do it differently. They play 5 "quarters" for MS. The first three require participation of all players and are all running clock periods. The second "half" is normal rules and no required participation. This allows everyone to play while at the same time making part of the game still somewhat realistic (they do have press and defense rules as well depending on the game situation). One of these leagues goes so far as to adjust the score at the beginning of the 2nd half. If a team wins the quarter they get two points, if they tie the quarter each team gets 1 point and if you lose the quarter you get zero. This means the second "half" can start with no more than a 6-0 lead, but can be as low as 3-3 (which is funny for the half in which nobody even scored). The other league uses straight scoring all the way through the 5 periods.

As for the rate of pay for those games. I wish it was closes to the hourly rate you guys get. We don't get close to that for the 5 quarter games we do, or for the 8 minute quarter games some leagues have started using.

In my experience, if games are cancelled while I am in transit, I am paid half of the game fee ($40 for a JV baseball game, $44 for a varsity baseball game). However, if I am on site, but the game is cancelled without me being notified (I have signed up for Arbiter Connected, so I receive both email updates and text messages about games), I am paid the full game fee ($80 for JV baseball, $88 for varsity baseball). This had also happened to me in other sports, and I was also paid full fees when a game was cancelled without me being notified (once was a softball game when the Maryland School for the Deaf and St. Andrews booked two sets of umpires, both in Frederick (where Maryland School for the Deaf is based) and in Potomac (where St. Andrews is), the game was played in Potomac, but the game assigned in Frederick was not cancelled in the Arbiter).

ODog, is this also the case in your part of MA?

Some AD's are much better in how they treat officials than others. Personally my favorite AD's are the ones who also have worked or still work as officials, because they know what officials deal with. My least favorites are the ones who are also current coaches in a school because they treat all officials like they treat the officials on their games, and they often are so worried about their sport they neglect the other sports when it comes to officials.

How is it possible to be an AD and officiate at the same time? Being an Athletic Director is very time-consuming, and there is an automatic conflict of interest with the school that employs you as AD, so I don't imagine that many AD's also officiate.

Still, it is weird that some AD's treat officials better than others. Perhaps some assigners have better relationships with AD's and/or are able to negotiate better contracts, including cancellation pay.

There are several AD's in my area who officiate and one not only officiates but also runs the shot clock at a nearby DIII school. They delegate certain school events to others, which is what most AD's do anyway. I know two AD's of rival schools who have a pact to referee their schools Freshman boys game one day -- that would be a hoot!

Randy McCall was an AD at a large school up until a few years ago. There are a number of ADs that officiate

One of my mentors was an AD for years. What's the automatic conflict of interest? There are plenty of games to officiate that don't involve one's school or conference.

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Conflict Of Interest ...
 

I retired from teaching middle school and coaching middle school basketball over ten years ago.

Over the past ten years I had a day job that prevented me from doing any mid-afternoon games. I did block out the high school in my system until about two years ago since I was very close to both the boys and girls coaches and the athletic director. After they all moved on I took off the high school block (I've got them on the road after the holidays).

In my new life this year as a subvarsity official, now retired from my day job, I forgot about my middle school. Back when I was there their games were assigned locally, not by my local board's assignment commissioner. It never dawned on me that I would be assigned one of their games.

Sure enough, I got assigned a home game at my middle school. At first I was going to keep it, it's been more than ten years, but I know many teachers, administrators, and both coaching staffs, so I turned back the game, and blocked out boys and girls, home and on the road.

I don't need any headaches, or to lose any sleep. There are plenty fish in the sea.

I don't think it is weird. Some people, some of whom happen to be ADs, are more thoughtful than others.

Here once showed up at a site, game was cancelled days before but someone forgot to call our assignor. As it turned out the visiting school had a lockdown situation on campus which also precluded them from traveling. We got half fee.

Never had a lockdown situation while at an event or that impact travel to an event. Had a long discussion at a conference swimming championship meet I was the diving referee for a couple years ago though about the timing of the event. Divers are given the time from 8-10 am to warm up before the swimmers get the pool from 10-11:45 and the swimming meet starts at 12:00. Divers then, by league rule get 30 minutes after the swimming concludes to warm up for diving. Dive sheets are due at the start of the diving warm up. At 8:30 the school went into an hour and 15 minute lockdown. This basically took away all the diving warm from the morning session. I made the decision as the diving referee to extend the warm up before the competition and allow the divers extra time to turn in the dive sheets. All the diving coaches agreed, but one of the swimming coaches (who also coordinates a rec league I umpire for) had strong disapproval to my decision.

The only other major problem I had was a swim meet where the concession stand burned popcorn. The fire alarm goes off everyone has to exit the facility, including all the swimmers who are told to immediately exit, in their suits into 40 degree weather. The districts policy requires the fire department to clear the building before anyone can re-enter. We had some very PO'ed swimmers, coaches and parents. The only thing we could do is give them an extended period to warm up after they were allowed to reenter the building.

I didn't say they officiated high school. One of them was an AD at a high school while being an official for college basketball. The other is a HS AD and officiates several college sports at the DII, DIII and NAIA levels.

As for the way the AD's treat officials. This boils down to two things. Some areas have AD's who have experience within the sporting community as a coach, official or athletes. Some of them have no experience with sports and are AD's because it was an administrative position within the school district. It is obvious which schools actually care about athletics and which ones care only about $$$$$$$.

Now it makes more sense, when an AD is an official at a different level, but it is still a big time commitment to be an AD.

No Conflict Of Interest ...
 

Worked my first home town (school system that I taught in, and coached in) high school game ever (almost forty years) yesterday (girls junior varsity), on the road. Didn't know a single person in the stands, didn't know any players, didn't know the junior varsity coach.

It was just another game.

I do know the varsity coach (he's a new official, wants to officiate in the summer, he's a teacher and wants to make some extra money), but from my coaching days (he was at a different high school at the time), we would bump into each other coaching at summer camps, there are more than a few of these coaches in our officiating area, I haven't coached at a summer camp in almost fifteen years.

Home junior varsity coach (whom I also knew from my camp coaching days) yanked my chain during game "Hey BillyMac, didn't you use to teach in (town)?". I replied, "It's been almost fifteen years". He replied (smiling), "Well, OK, no problem, but how about calling them both ways?".

I still block off the middle school that I taught at, and coached at, home and on the road.