Has anyone attempted to start an Assoc.

[BayStateRef]

Originally Posted by REFVA

I was approached by the person who runs the league and wanted to know if we, meaning a number of officials that work number of games to get together and would we be interested to officiate a number of gyms. So in a nutshell I had inquired with my fellow officials and they all said yes. Now the league is asking for a contract from us and I have no idea where to begin.

Rut's advice is certainly dead-on: what works in his area (and my area) may not work in yours. But, now that you have explained what you really need, I can offer this advice (based on how it works in this part of Massachusetts.)

No association here "owns" the right to assign games. For AAU, each program finds someone to assign refs. This "someone" is usually an official who assigns for other programs (rec, travel, men, maybe high school) and has a stable of officials available. The assignor makes the deal with the program: how much refs will be paid; how much he will be paid; how everyone will be paid.

I worked an AAU tournament this weekend for an assignor who uses me for his "big" tournaments. For his smaller tournaments, he has enough refs that he does not need me. This tournament director also demands that officials not work more than three games in a day -- and the assignor has to make sure he has enough officials to cover that requirement. I get paid cash at the game site.

When I started out as an official and wanted to work AAU tournaments, I found it difficult to find games, because every tournament had a different assignor -- and each assignor had his stable of favored officials. Now that I have been around a while, I am on several assignor's lists and I don't look for games -- but I also don't want to work more than one or two weekends a month this time of year.

As an independent contractor, there is no association here that can tell me who to work for (or not). If an assignor calls me for games and I am working for someone else that weekend, he just calls someone else on the list. I'm sure that if he heard that too often from me, I wouldn't get any more calls from him.

So....my bottom line to you: I would gladly take on this AAU responsibility, providing I knew that I had a large enough stable of officials for all the games. The tournament directors need to be sure that if they give you 150 games to assign, you will have officials for all those games. My "contract" would be no more than a letter stating the obvious: what is your responsibility and what is theirs. It would state how much officials would be paid and when. (For example, one assignor I know requires the entire fee be paid to him two days in advance so he can get cash and put the proper fee in envelopes, which he personally hands out. Another assignor leaves it up to the AAU program to pay the officials.) This letter also would include my fee. Typical fees for assigning here are $2 per official per game. I got $35 per game this weekend, for 16-minute stop-time halves, scheduled at 1:15 each. The games ran faster, and my games averaged 1:05. Another assignor I know pays $33/game.

As Rut said, you need to know what "works" in Northern Virginia. But I would not hesitate to take this on. It can be a nice income stream. It also can be a royal PITA when officials don't show up or when games get scheduled or unscheduled on little notice. (This happens a lot in AAU ball.) Only you can decide if the pros outweigh the cons.

Good luck.