Interesting Article.

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This is an interesting article. In my area (northern VA), we do not contract on our own for games. My association has contracts for most of the high schools (75-80) in this area. The association also contracts for rec league and AAU games. Basketball runs year-round in this area. We have separate assignors for scholastic and rec ball. The scholastic assignor sends me my schedule usually twice a season and the recreation schedule is usually done for a 2-week period. We can go to our web page and see all rec games available and "request" particular games. The web page schedule is separated by applicants, JV, and Varsity. It is set up so an applicant cannot request assignment to a varsity level game. I work scholastic and rec during the same season. This seems to work fine for me. Actually, I don't know if I could schedule/contract on my own. I have never heard of this being done here. I think there are 4 or 5 associations in this are, but we are the largest -- about 300 officials. As with any association, we have the "good old boys" network. However, our assignor is pretty good about giving everyone a fair shake.