Talking to a ref last night, and he was telling about a situation where a new ref showed up to a game in black knee-length shorts with a white stripe up the side, and white shoes with black socks. This wasn't rec, but an official league game. He was corrected, apparently, by his partner, but showed up to his next game dressed the same way. Someone talked to him, and he admitted that he didn't have any money at all to buy the proper apparel. I guess a few guys got together and gave him some of their things so that he could at least look okay. It got me thinking -- do any of your associations have any formal provision for this kind of situation? Assuming that he could turn out to be a decent ref, I wonder how many other potential refs out there are held back by lack of funds?

A full officiating uniform costs a max of about $150. Yes, that's a chunk of change, but if you're already reffing (which this guy obviously was), you can make that in a weekend of kiddie ball.

I'm not saying that the guy can't receive help, just that it shouldn't be that hard to scrape up uniform money from the fees he's already taking in.

In our association we don't get paid until about three weeks in. If he'd never worked before reffing, he hasn't gotten any fees.

My question, then, would be why he's working official "league" games (which I'm guessing are HS?) if he's never reffed before.

Again, I'm not saying that nobody should help the guy out if he really needs it. I'm just curious about the situation.

Probably 7th and 8th grade, but assigned by PBOA. official in that sense. PBOA starts people every year who have never reffed before. There are plenty of people who have done rec before they get to PBOA, but also quite a few who are compeltely green. Like me.

In our assoc. we have an arrangement with Honigs for our new officials, who first get approval from our assignor, to charge a starter pkg. Our assoc, pays Honigs, and we withhold the cost from his game fees. Not sure of the exact specifics, but that is what is communicated at our meetings, esp. at the beginning of the year.

I like this idea!

In football what we do, is the first couple meetings established guys bring in stuff for the newbies to use, with the understanding that when they are in a position to do so, that they pay it forward so to speak.

My basketball and football associations both have accounts set up at honigs, where at any time if we need new uniform supplies, it'll come off our pay, so we don't have to worry about it.

We collect uniforms that are still in good shape from our vets (amazing how some of these guys manage to shrink their polyester in the off-season) to distribute to the new folks. If a newbie needs to have some uniform costs deducted from a future paycheck, we have them work that out with our financial person. Yeah, we have to eat those costs once in a while, but the benefits outweigh the risks.

Z