HS Tournament Officials

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by tomegun
JRut, whoa wait a minute. IHSA, is that Indiana or Illinois? I'm from Indiana, that's why I ask.

Illinois High School Association.

Originally posted by tomegun
I can agree with most of what you said because it makes sense except for one thing. I don't agree with someone from a school having a say in who get's in the playoffs.

You can agree or disagree, I am just sharing with you what the system is, I did not create the system myself. To be honest with you, schools always have a say to some extent. Do not ever think because you have just a "board" makes the decisions, that they are not influenced by what schools and coaches want. Because if you have had run ins with many coaches, it is going to make the powers that be think about what you have been doing out there to have them dislike you so much. You know, the when there is smoke, there must be fire theory.


I just had an experience last night that showed me again that some officials do not want to handle the "dirty work" in order to keep coaches and administrators happy. We are already fighting a losing battle as far as sportsmanship goes.

Well, I know officials that do the dirty work often, and it never has seemed to affect their playoff opportunity. At least in my system, the coach accounts for one rating. So I really could give a rat's a$$ if a coach does not like me or not. It has never hurt me in getting in the conference I want to work or even the school I want to work.

You add the fact that a "big time" coach has a say in how far you advance and then he gets away with stuff. Remember, I'm not talking about anyone on this board but I have seen this happen. Has anyone else seen this happen? Honestly.

If one coach is that mad at me over something I did in his or her game, I probably pasted 10-20 school to get to that one. So who cares what a "big time" coach thinks. I know of no coach that has so much power that the folks downstate are influence by him or her. I can give you some stories of some very public episodes, with Ts flying and coaches getting thrown out, and the officials at the game still went far in the playoffs. In our system, who cares what one coach thinks. It is a lot better than the system we had before.

In Nevada it is up to the commissioner. The state is broken up into south, north and east. Each region has a commissioner and they decide. This has it's flaws too but overall you have a mix of reward and need. You reward some officials and you need other officials. The games are assigned according to how the commissioner feels you do.

As I stated, one person makes the decision who makes the playoffs. One person for the Boy's side, one person for the Girl's side. This is just a recent thing that they tell us what the criteria are. But I do know that all of that is just a guideline, not the final straw. Because as officials advance thru the playoffs, if someone representing the IHSA does not see you, you are not going to likely go that far in the playoffs to begin with. All that data might help you get in, but you have to prove that you were worthy to advance. And you will probably never advance to the next level, like a Sectional (second level) or Super-Sectional(third-level), unless you have done at least a Regional or Sectional in past years. So I can speak for myself, I will not be doing a Super-Sectional this coming year.

Originally posted by tomegun
You could have made a tough call on a team and that coach just has to deal with it, he/she has no say.

I could be wrong, but I do not buy that completely. Because if you make a tough call, I am sure the assignor, commissioner is not going to just send you to a bad situation on purpose, especially if the coach or AD complained heavily. I do not believe that the commissioner takes no account of what others think about you as an official. Unless he went out and saw you work every game, I am sure he takes into account what someone thinks about your ability. Now, that does not mean that the information that is giving is the final say, but I am not going to just believe that no coach can ever complain about an official. I cannot speak for Nevada, but Illinois has over 800 schools that are IHSA members. All of them make the playoffs. So if you cannot get a playoff game, you have more to worry about then what one coach thinks. There is much more to getting a playoff game (7 areas to be specific).

Peace