Middle School Games
 

With arthritis and bone spurs in my right ankle and a torn meniscus in my right knee, even with an ankle brace and a knee brace, I don't think I'll officiate another high school varsity game again.

But I am enjoying my middle school games (I'm retired from my day job so I'm available in the afternoons). I enjoy working with kids, I enjoy working with new officials, my assignment commissioner needs experienced officials like me in the afternoon, no games to observe before or after mine, most middle school coaches appreciate an experienced official on the court, I come and go in uniform, I'm home in time for dinner, middle school assignments are almost always very close to home, and the pay is decent ($64.93).

As a retired middle school science teacher, I'm also enjoying my time on our mechanics training committee.

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Unfortunately there is no shortage of officials who would happily sell their souls to get a shot in college basketball, and the D1 level at that. Therefore supervisors really have no incentive to be "open yet honest" or have any sort of "decency." Transparent college assigners, from JuCo all the way up to the Power 5, are in the minority.

You may be right, SC Official, but that's no excuse--maybe a reason, but not an excuse--for supervisors to conduct their business that way. Even with a large pool of officials and candidates, an assigner could still tell refs why they are being dropped.

Several years ago, a baseball assigner told me that the hardest thing he had to do was to tell umpires why he had to drop them.

It's a choice: you treat people decently or you don't. <sigh>

I've come to have low expectations for college supervisors in that regard. I have one D3 supervisor whom I really like working for b/c of how honest and candid he is while still treating us the respect and dignity we all deserve.

I do not disagree with you but the reality is the college officiating world is cutthroat and the power dynamic lends itself to the assigners having egos bigger than their heads. No matter how many officials walk away from bad assigners, there will always be enough bodies to take their places to get games in that particular league. The perception of "prestige" and the money involved in college officiating outweighs the BS for plenty of officials.

And for the record, high school isn't immune from this crap either. The big difference is, high school assignments often outnumber availability, whereas college availability often outnumbers assignments.

And with a lot of assigners it's just a matter of "he either likes you or he doesn't."