I had to read this 3 times before I realized I shouldn't take it personally ;)

I've been to a lot of camps and I've never been to ANY camp where assigners were that was NOT competitive. Now if they have training camps where you are, fine, but that is not what you said in your first post.

If an official has paid up to $200 to be seen by assigners, just how happy will they be working with a newbie? How helpful will they be to that new official?

We had a camp last year in Arizona, ran by our high school governing agency, and this camp was open to all officials. The games we worked were in conjunction with a girls elite tournament, with 200 teams in 3 classes, regular HS, HS elite, and JUCO.

The problem was that the people running the tournament never gave a master schedule to the people assigning games and the result? You had 2 brand new officials working HS elite and JUCO games. As an experienced official I ended up working 4 times the number of games that I was origionally scheduled, observers were working games, and the tournament did not come back THIS year.

If it is a training camp fine, but any camp that you pay more than $100 to attend and it has assigners is competitive, and brand new officials will only be hurt by attending.

That seems a little over-simplified, bz. It sounds to me as though the camp you described was not run well, and that had nothing to do with who was attending, but with the assignors. I can't see cost being as much an issue as who's in charge and what they are trying to accomplish.

Camps are usually money making ventures for the assignors, so I did not really have an issue with cost, if people are getting hired from these camps, they are competitive.

That was what I was trying to point out, brand new officials aren't going to have a great learning experience at a competitive camp.

The camp I was speaking of in Arizona, only cost $50 and we got payed for the games we officiated, so money was not an issue. There was a breakdown in the organization, the new officials were meant to be working the local HS division of the camp...pretty much frosh/JV games.

Every other camp I've attended the emphasis has been on refining your game to reach the next level, mechanics are about the little things, but most of the teaching is about call selection and game management.

This is exactly what I'm disagreeing with. We have several camps around here that combine teaching and getting hired. It doesn't have to be a big deal to put those two together. In fact, at one camp I've attended several times, the assignors are LOOKING for how well a person learns. It's a teaching camp, and everyone that attends learns a lot, but assignors are also checking things out. For some people, there's an element of competition, but that doesn't take away from the learning opportunities for newbies.

Then it is a TRAINING camp, which is what I refered to in my second post. It is great if HS assignors are teaching at a camp, but from my experience that is not the case at most camps.

I'd say it is better to find out as much as you can about a camp before any new official attends. Level of games being worked, who are the clinicians working the camp, what assignors will be attending and what level are they assigning all need to be known.

It was BOTH a training camp, and a hiring camp. Why is that so hard to believe?

I agree with this 100%!

Because in this case, "wetting your whistle" would not be a good thing! :)

I don't know. I never tried. Have you?

It's not the aim that's the concern.

I'll let Padgett finish it, though.