There are officials that worked their first D1 game that never worked a high school varsity game. IJS.

Peace

Pro-Am Summer Basketball League ...
 

A new non-scholastic, non-collegiate, officiating training and assigning organization just started here in Connecticut. Their raison d'être is to train and assign officials for the Greater Hartford Pro-Am Summer Basketball League. They recruited guys from my local scholastic IAABO board, but were not only interested in taking the most experienced, and the best of the best, but are willing to train anybody who wanted to learn NBA rules and mechanics.

Learn Something Every Day ...
 

Thanks for sharing JRutledge.

Reminds me of the first soccer coach at the middle school that I taught at. Back then, not too many of my generation played soccer in high school. He was a baseball guy. The first soccer game he ever coached was, at the same time, the first soccer game he ever watched. Went on to a very successful soccer (and softball) coaching career at the high school.

Similar to some local scholastic basketball officials who added scholastic volleyball officiating to their repertoire and rapidly went on to scholastic volleyball officiating success (state tournament) with never having played a scholastic volleyball game (outside of a high school physical education class), in many cases the first scholastic volleyball game they worked was the first scholastic volleyball game they watched.

When you've got it, you've got it, some are just born with it.

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It is a little more than that. Officials are being trained for the levels that supervisors or clinicians feel they are able to work. That again is the point I am making. There is a system in place to get officials to higher levels. That system seems to work for some they identify as having the ability. High school associations or assignors spend more time telling officials of a certain age how long they have to wait, while the college and pro levels cultivate that talent and use them.

Peace