Well, for college assigning, supervisors and conferences commissioners have to account for multiple states and their individual policies before publishing the conference policy. That may affect where some officials can and cannot work. It may affect where some officials choose to take assignments. That begins the domino effect that has no equivalency at the HS level.

Complex ...
 

Understand. Sounds complex. Glad I'm not involved with such. Thanks.

We already have several scholastic officials who have chosen not to work games this year because they choose not to sign an affidavit that they are fully vaccinated, or complete the necessary paperwork with the state association that they have a medical contraindication or firmly held religious or spiritual belief (Note: There is no testing option).

I'm not sure if they're opting out because of COVID in general (as many did last year, 40% of our guys chose not to be assigned games last season due to health concerns), or to protest mandates, citing medical privacy concerns.

Then start another topic. But this kind of is irrelevant to the OP. As Raymond said, multiple states and multiple institutions have many more things to factor in than a local high school. And conferences are playing teams likely from other states or other parts of a state. So the issue or issues that would be related to them has nothing to do with high school where you might be in the same school district or the next school district over. Nothing wrong with that conversation, but not relevant to college assigning and their process. The only way it affects what high school does is if officials have to choose to work a high school or college game on the same night. Otherwise one has nothing to do with the other.

Peace

Walk And Chew Gum ...
 

Done. Maybe JRutledge can be the first to post.

Yes, I just got a flurry of assignments, and luckily only two were conflicting and they were D2 vs JUCO, so the assignor was fine with it.

I will say I have one D3 assignor who won't accept any turn backs "unless it's D1". I'm not sure if he realizes how much of his staff works D2, but it's at least 50%, so we'll see how long that lasts.

Fortunately for me, I work for assignors that know that a good deal of their staff works for other assignors that they know and they often talk to maximize your schedules with other assignors. But this situation is unusual where it appears there is more of a fight for spots and they might work together but expect some loyalty to them. It is hard because there are only so many games to go around at one time.

Right now I have mostly D3 stuff out. I have literally one D2 game in November. And the biggest consortium I am a part of has not put anything past the first Saturday in December at this point (as far as I can tell). Going to be very interesting the next coming days and months.

Peace

Yeah, ask the D2 assigners if they view D3 games as equivalents.

They don't and neither do the officials. But also some areas have only a plethora of D2 in an area and might not have D3 in the area or vise versa. Officials just want to work.

But I bet D2 pays more than D3 anyway and clearly has more prestige. I hate when officials are caught in the middle of this, especially now.

Peace

I agree with you. I was intending to point out that the D3 assigner who doesn't view D2 games as being a higher level - is a dick. Another example of a low-level assigner thinking more highly of himself and his league than he should.

Fortunately, all the assigners I work for across three different levels of college basketball, and my high school assigner, know where they stand on the hierarchy.

I was not disagreeing at all, just adding to the fact that some parts of the country have fewer multiple levels of college ball to deal with. Or they have fewer so they do not care if D2 is assigned because they do not have that many games to deal with. In an area like mine, we are surrounded by JUCO, NAIA, D3 and D2 and people can work multiple games in the same basic area. There are areas that have absolutely no NAIA for example and NAIA in some cases pays more than D3 and JUCO. I have had assignors say, "A JUCO game is better than any D3 game." This might be true on paper, but there might be a better atmosphere in a D3 game than any JUCO game. I know officials out west for example that have no D3 in their area and they work a bunch of D2. Hard to do that here because a lot of D2 is given to guys that work D1 already and you are trying to get whatever they are not being considered for. Because if a JUCO assignor told me that he did not want me to get off a game to work a D3 game in my area, I might stop working for that person altogether. JUCO is probably in some cases better talent, but for the lack of a better word can be a shit show.

Peace

I totally agree with everything you said. You have to know what a particular assigner views as a "better" game, but assigners who view themselves as on-par with higher-level leagues should STFU. Maybe convince your commissioner to pay as much money as those leagues and then you can start talking.

JuCo ball is incredibly hit or miss. I have worked in two different NJCAA conferences. The facilities, personalities, and level of play can be on either end of the spectrum. The only thing that is consistent from school to school is the pay, and I guess at the end of the day that is what matters. And both of those assigners are well aware that they are at the bottom of the totem pole and are always accommodating to their guys who get higher level games. That's the way it should be.

Here is a portion of an email I received from a supervisor today.

"The D1 leagues on the East Coast (consortiums) have decided this year to hold their schedules and release periodically. Most have released November but not December yet! As you might imagine this puts D2 and D3 in a fix!"

Sorry Billy, explaining to us how high school assigning works where you officiate will add no insight to this conversation. I still referee high school basketball and this has nothing to do with my high school schedule.

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That's like a JUCO supervisor saying he won't release you for a D3 game, only D2 and D1 games.

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Arbiter is also a problem in this respect. All your Arbiter assigners can see whether you have a game or not even if you don’t share your schedule. A lot of them will pass over you even if you show as open but have a lower-level assignment. I know an assigner who doesn’t use Arbiter for this exact reason.

Way Out Of My League ...
 

While I fully agree that I can not add any expert (or otherwise) insight to this conversation (way out of my league), there is some similarity between college and high school assigning, but only if one assumes that the high school officials work lower level (recreation, travel, middle school games not assigned high school assigner, i.e., Catholic middle schools), a similarity that I can demonstrate by rephrasing Raymond's email.

High school assignments will be held and released periodically. As you might imagine, this puts recreation and travel assignments in a fix.

Many years ago, before email and computer assigning, in the days of snail mail and phone calls, we got our full season high school assignments first, and after that we got our full season (from multiple low level assigners, park and recreation directors, league officers or coaches, hometown officials, etc.) recreation and travel assignments (with weather related changes coming later), with low level assignments coming in some type of priority order based on officials preferences.

After the invention of email and computer assigning, and after a particularly nasty winter of bad weather, our high school assigner discovered that it would be better for him to "trickle" out our high school assignments two weeks at a time. Of course, that forced recreation assigners and travel assigners to do the same.

Last year with COVID, our high school assigner often published assignments days, or even hours, in advance. While I no longer work lower level (recreation, travel) assignments, I can imagine the problems ("fix") this generated for lower level assigners.

Apples and oranges (D3 college game has little to do with sixth grade girls travel game), but they're still both fruit (and need assigned officials).

It's still a hierarchy, granted, not as important, but it's still a hierarchy.

Of course, many of you work for multiple assigners at multiple levels, multiple high school assigners (different leagues, individual schools, different states), and multiple college assigners (multiple levels and multiple leagues at the same level), making for very complex assignments, with lots of "big money' at stake, lots of miles to travel (many by plane), and many assigners to appease.

I've never had more than one high school assigner (same all across the six local boards in Connecticut), and I've never worked for more than two, or three, low level assigners at any one time.

And I only pledged allegiance and was only totally loyal to two assigners (high school and Catholic middle school). For the rest, for low level games, easy come, easy go. Maybe I'm available, maybe I'm not, maybe thank you, maybe no thank you. I have skills and experience that are needed, there are not an unlimited number of available, experienced, skilled officials, I work on my terms, I can always shop around. Supply and demand.

The college woes that many of you are experiencing doesn't come close to comparing to the high school and low level woes that high school guys like me can experience.