Actually, we do. RecRef and I are in the same association. I usually dress "business casual" since that is the dress code for work. I sometimes wear a coat and tie, but usually dress in either a sweater or coat/mock turtle neck type of shirt. For rec ball, it is just shorts and t-shirt and I put the stripes on at the game site.

I have a question along the same lines. What do you guys where to camps? I will say that the dress for camps does vary at least from East coast to West coast. Out West it was almost always Polo, shorts and running shoes. On the East coast it depends on the camp and the total environment. I went to one camp out West where we were required to wear pants. That isn't too bad. But, for some reason a lot of guys brought and wore their college jackets! That same year guys were wearing coats and ties to our morning meetings. It got to the point where one of our speakers mentioned it and the fact that he didn't think it was needed.

I'm in the military and I do not like to go to a game in uniform. I have only had to do this once in many years and I didn't like it then. I have my own opinions of wearing my uniform aside from officiating plus I wear Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs) most of the time and I don't like to look like a bush all the time :) I think the bottom line with dress is high school is different than college. High school games should be treated with as much respect as possible. If you are a good ref and you dig ditches then I don't see why someone would hold it against you to come to a school in your work attire as long as it is reasonable. If you can dress in business casual and would like to then there shouldn't be a problem with that either. However, when you sign that contract to work college games it is a different story. It should be coat and tie or turtle neck. I don't like turtle necks so it is always coat and tie for me. My mentors also told me to where a coat and tie when taking a picture for a roster so on more than one occasion I have looked like an idiot in a store with a shirt, tie and jacket on my top half while wearing shorts!

I do not think we should go to our games dressed. It is uncomfortable for me. Where are we going to go during the JV game? I would not sit in the stands with my uniform on. It is already bad enough that some fans know who we are with our street clothes on.

For those who don't know (not suggesting Dexter is one), uniform of the day essentially means the military uniform required for the section you work on any given day. In my experience with the Air Force, it could either be dress blues, BDU's, or cook whites.
Although if I were to ever ref a game after a day in military uniform, I'd most likely take a change of civilian clothes with me to work to change into before I left the base.

Around here, most middle school AD's look confused when you ask them for a place to change. They then point you to the bathroom, and I end up putting my bag behind the scorer's table. Same thing with summer leagues. I much prefer the ability to change clothes and make it less obvious that I'm the ref when I'm not in the gym. I guess I just prefer the low key approach.
High school stuff (my experience is sub-varsity) I always change on site; and try to wear slacks or khakis with a collared shirt.

Adam

Wow, this is an interesting thread to read! As not quite a high school varsity yet, I personally go straight to the games dressed. The reason is that I work a significant distance from the schools/gyms that I would officiate at. Traffic is pretty bad where I work and so I dress right after work and try to hustle to the gyms the best I can.

With that said, the veteran varsity officials I know usually were fairly causal clothes before the game and change as they get to the gym.

I've never heard of our assocation ever having any requirements as to what to wear before games. However, most of the senior officials tend to come in business casual and that seems to be a generally accepted standard.

[Edited by coach41 on Jul 28th, 2004 at 12:43 PM]

Never mind the association, around here it's illegal to go anywhere, if not dressed...

I work in the construction industry (in sales) and I wear jeans, a golf shirt and work boots to work every day. This is also what I wear to my games because I live in a major metropolitan area and there simply isn't time to go home and change my truck doubles as an office so there really isn't anywhere to change. Most of the time my clothes are clean, but there have been occasions where my clothes were really dirty.

To this point I don't think it has hindered my officiating career. I officiated at the V level in one state, moved to another and I officate at the V level here too. The only real thing that has affected my schedule is my ability, not what I wear to games.

Now for college games, all of the leagues I work have dress codes and I adhere to them very strictly. If my HS leagues were to change, I would change with them, but it would be a challenge.

Rainmaker,

Yeah, I guess it would rather silly if officials came to the game with no clothes on. :D

And yes, i caught on to what I wrote and edited it to more accurarely reflect what i was trying to say. :)

FrankHtown
 

Hey Frank... shoot me an email off the board. My account should allow it.

While I am at it I should contribute to the thread. The only time I showed up to a game dressed is a middle school game that was 5 minutes from my house. And even though I showed up 20 minutes before the game as opposed to 30 - with my shirt in another bag and the association T-shirt over my Under Armor shirt tucked in at that! Any other time than that - unless I was doing a private school game where I was told there would be no place to change (has happend!) i showed up in street clothes. Usually jeans, and a nice shirt, Granted I am still at the sub-varsity level. If I was doing a friday night set I would usually thrown on some casual khakis that I have, always with dress shoes or dress boots. It also depended on who I worked for on said nights. If i worked for one ofm y assignors it was always khakis with a nice shirt. Interestingly enough the coaches read me as more seasoned despite this being my first year... rode me alot less than my partners who would show up 5 min before game in full uniform with a blue Nike jacket on. But i saw that school alot due to the size of that area. If I worked for the main chapter in the area things are little less strict for sub-varsity. They're happy if you show up period but being younger I tried to appear as nicely as I can, and BBall junkie and Brad will tell you- thats hard for me to do :-P.



[Edited by ace on Jul 28th, 2004 at 01:50 PM]