Class 5A State Finals--Florida
 

I just happen to be watching Fox College Sports (Atlantic) this afternoon because I am bored. The Class 5A State Finals are on TV and there are 3 women working the game. According to the commentators this is the first time an all-female officiating crew is working a boy's state final in Florida.

This made me think about other states. Has this happen in other states. I cannot even think of a single female official to work a post season boy's game here, let alone a state final.

I also noticed another odd occurrence. In our Class AA (Big schools of a two class system) State Finals, there was a coach that won a 3rd place game and most of the tournament he was wearing a sweat suit and not a business suit or business look like all the other coaches. Now when I was watching this game from Florida, both coaches were in what I would call "business casual" at best. Now where I live it is very typical for coaches to be in suits for varsity contest and at the worst they were a sweater that looks like a Bobby Knight style look. Was the business casual look common in the state of Florida or other warm area states or is this just something unusual?

BTW, one of the coaches got T'd up.

If you could not tell already, I am really bored. :D

Peace

Why aren't you watching the MLB Celebrity Softball Game? Or, if you did, who won? :D

Jeff, I'm not sure if you know, but has an all-female crew even worked one of the girls' finals here in IL?

I know of a couple of women officials that would do a fine job on the boys side, but for some reason, they don't do many boys HS games. I think it might be because the better ones get taken to do women's college, and the few HS games they do will probably be girls.

Wearing a sweat suit during the game is very unprofessional in my opinion. I remember when it happened it made news down in this area. Oh well...whatever floats his boat.

I would say you're onto something Jim. I doubt there has been an all women crew work the Boys State Finals just because the good ones are working college ball.

Here in Washington State, I can only recall one woman who has ever worked a boys game at a state tournament.

It is very common to have women working the girl's state tournaments and many of them have worked state championship games. Many of our state's best female college officials work a fairly full high school schedule as well.

Z

I won’t watch the All-Star game, why would I watch a Celebrity Softball game? :D

Actually I did realize that. I have combed over the IHSA handbook and I have never seen but one or two female officials working in the state finals out of the 12 officials. I do know we do not have the numbers of female officials in basketball as they seemed to have in other sports like Volleyball.

I have actually worked varsity games with a couple of female officials. I would agree the qualifications are not at issue, but the opportunities are. I do know some D1 female officials that just have not been given an opportunity to work HS varsity boy's games. I just found this very interesting since you almost never see that here.

Peace

This was mentioned on the forum a few months ago.

http://forum.officiating.com/showthr...e+crew+Florida


BTW a female was part of the 3 person crew for the boys 2A state final in NV this past season.

Could someone please bring these enlightened attitudes down here to our Neanderthal neck of the woods? We're lucky to have women refs working even the playoff games on the girls side. In fact, the way things go, we're lucky to have any women refs in high school at all.

Eeekk. Sorry, folks. This one pushed my buttons. It's been a very unpleasant summer politically. I promise not to rant again for at least a week or two. And to think seriously about switching up to Washington.

In Wisconsin we have never had a female work any postseason assignments on the boys side, to my knowledge, and we have a female in charge of our basketball here.:cool:

Juulie, I hope you're not completely serious (read all this before you pass judgement on my statements).

While there have been few women make it to the tourney, there have been few qualified to pick from (and I have voted for all of them). The best upcoming women officials I've seen don't stick around long enough to even get on the ballot, much less get in a tourney. Look at all the men who went to the tourney this year: every single one of them has been officiating 15-20+ YEARS....you don't get there quickly....even as a male. I think I can count on one hand the number of females that are in the PBOA that have been officiating that long. Even the next 20-30 officials on the list have worked 10-15+ years. The women that do continue officiating often moved on to college ball or have moved away.

The typical good official (male or female) will be working 4-7 years in the PBOA before getting a varsity game (of any kind) much less a playoff game. Many promising officials (male or female) I've seen don't stick it out long enough to get there. They all want it today. If you look at our association of 350 people and realize that the number of varisty games we do accounts for only ~15% of the games, it becomes pretty clear that there are a lot of people not getting varsity games. Unless there are varsity officials leaving, you've got to be clearly better to take their games away from them, not just as good.

Also, if you look at the percentages of females in the association, they get a larger % of varsity games than thier actual numbers suggest. A female official gets varisty games well before a similarly skilled male official. You'll also notice that the percentage of females drops as the experience level goes up (larger percentage of females among newer members as compared to the older members). Put simply, many women come in, see few women officials at the top, and give up...not sticking around long enough to get women to the top and not realizing they were getting there faster than thier male peers.

When I see a newer official that stands out, I'll often tell the commissioner/assignor about it. I've done so for several over the years including several women. Not one of those women that I gave very positive feedback on stuck around more than 2-3 years while several of the men have. Where'd they go? I don't know but there were not here long enough to get anywhere.

All that said, there is a stong belief around the association that there are several officials just out of the tourney votes that are just as qualified as the last few to get in...the way popular votes often go. There are going to be changes in the tourney selection system that will mix things things up. Several more officials will now get a shot. In fact, I think it will guarantee that you'll see more women and minorities from the PBOA in the playoffs. I can think of at least 2 women that have never been to the playoffs that, under the proposed system, will likely be there within 3 years...probably at the girls 5A. Those two are also officials that have been around for many years.

What Camron said is true here in Washington State as well. Anytime we get a woman official on the girls side with any ability at all, she is promoted very quickly. Much quicker than a man of equal ability. Call it mentoring, call it "good for the girls game," call it whatever you want. It happens. As hard as we try to recruit female officials, it's hard to find many. When we get a decent one, we do all we can to help them succeed as fast as possible. If we're guilty of anything, it's pushing them up too fast. But on the girls side, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.

I know that when I go to a state tournament on the girls side, I have to be considerably better than any woman there, not just slightly better, in order to get the championship game. I have no problem with that, in fact I enjoy the challenge and I know what the "ground rules" are before I get there.

Despite the fact that we bend over backwards to promote quality female officials, many of the female officials who don't climb the ladder quickly think it's a "Neanderthal thing." No different really than the men who don't climb the ladder quickly and blame it on politics or a good-old boy network.

Z

Women officials
 

In my area there just aren't many female officials from which to pull. I would be really generous if I were to guess that there are 10 women in our local association.

The best of those is inactive b/c her college schedule is so heavy (2 major D1's, 4 mid-major D1's, one D2, one D3). She worked boys' games during the regular season and district play-offs but our commissioner would only nominate her for girls' side when it came time for the state tourney. She, IMO, is the best referee, man or woman, who I've seen in my association.

The next best lady ref starting officiating with me a little less than 5 years ago and she is in 4 college conferences already (including one mid-major D1). She's worked BJV but I'm pretty sure she hasn't done any BV games as of yet.

There is one other high quality female official on the board. She also does some BJV but no BV at all. After her the drop-off in talent in female officials on my board is precipitous, IMO.

We have quite a few high-quality male officials who do not work college basketball, but only one high-quality female who doesn't. Quality female officials get gobbled up by the college ranks. Male officials have to grind a little more.

Here's the question: Do you want your best female official working the Girls' state championship or the Boys' state championship?

My personal opinion, but I think the girls who play the game like seeing a female ref working the important GIRLS games.

Camron -- you and I have debated this before, and I know there's not a lot of agreement between us. I don't think this is the place for this discussion. The basic fact is that women don't stick around because they don't see any point to sticking around. If they're good they move up to college. If they're not, they just quit. I know these are facts because I talk to these people.

Also, even if the PBOA changes their tournament selection process, there's still the whole OSAA thing to get around. How will having both boys' and girls' tournaments at the same time, same site, make it more likely for women to get to the tournament? Has it helped at 1A, or 2A in the past? Fact is, this is going to be retrograde, and I personally think it's at least partially....

no, I'm not going to say that. No point.

Lastly, even if PBOA is the most enlightened organization in the country, what about the rest of the state? It's even more neanderthal in Burns, Medford, Pendleton and even Eugene than it is here in Portland. Ya gotta admit, there's not a lot of future for women in high school basketball officiating in Oregon.

I belong to 3 Official's associations and we do not have 3 female officials in all those associations combined (that I am aware of). I did belong to an association that has many more women, but they work mostly college and advance very fast in the girl's tournament. In our state it is also almost impossible to work all the way through on both boy's and girl's basketball at the same time. So the women officials mostly stick to the girl's side. Women advance quicker (than anyone I might add on the boy's or girl's officiating) on the girl's side. Unless a woman just did everything to commit themselves to boy's basketball, I do not see anything taking shape. Unless something changes drastically in this state, I do not see a single woman working a boy's state final. There just are not the numbers and there most would rather work college ball. Right now this is a man's game because women show hardly any interest. Men find all kinds of ways to be apart of sports and women seemed to not care. That might be seen as a stereotype, but when I see guys in their 40s left and right joining officiating in many sports and you cannot even get a young women to try officiating, that tells me that sports is still a man's thing to do and not yet a women's vast interest.

Peace

You just proved my point....they're either so good they move past HS or, if they're not that good, they bolt before they've even been around long enough to get anywhere...not realizing they were already getting there faster than the males that started at the same time. The few that have stuck around long enough do get boys varisty games and do get into the tourney...but there are few. It's easy to quit after 2-3 years and blame the system rather than actually work the 10, 15, or even 20 years it takes to actually get to the top.

Not sure what you mean....it sounds like you may be a little out of date with your info. The OSAA, with the goal of getting more females into better tourney games and have more of the top men working the mid/lower level girls games, was considering having ALL levels (1A - 6A) be combined boys/girls tourneys and requiring that officials at those tourneys work at least one game of each gender. The hope was that this would get some women chances to work some upper level boys tourney games.

However, the slots would fill from the top of the vote rankings in a predictable fashion. The top ranking men have historically selected a lower lever combined boys/girls tourney than the higher level girls-only tourney and will likely to continue to do so. But, with them all being combined, they men would select the highest level tourney. Unless the female was at the very top of the votes in their association such a system would actually make it less likely that female officials would get to work a high level girls game than the current system since it would more likely be taken. This proposal would have had an effect opposite of what was desired...virtually eliminating women from all the top level tourneys for at least the near future

So, they decided to split the boys and girls for the 5A and 6A levels. Men will likely select the 4A combined over the 5A girls and quite probably over the 6A girls as well. So, all else equal, the women will have at least as good a shot at the 5A and 6A girls as before. If they chose a combined tourney, they'll be working at least one boys tournament game.



Certainly not if they quit well before giving it the many, many year that the men give it....as you claim to know is the case. I kown absolutely nothing about how other associations do their business. Perhaps it is lagging Portland. But if your description is any indication, there aren't enough good women officials willing to pay their dues to change things.


Do you really think it'd be fair to have someone who's been working to get get improve and move up for 15-20 years to get games taken away and given to a 4th or 5th year official who's not nearly as good (yet). If someone wants to get to the top, they must be willing to put in same level of the effort, dedication, determination, and patience to get there as those that are there have already done. Noone can expect an express pass to leapfrog them ahead of those who've working for those same spots for over a decade.

Yes, there are a lot of men at the top but they didn't get there overnight.

Why does your state/local association believe that it takes that long for an official to be of top quality?

Wouldn't the counter effects of aging actually push the more senior official down the ladder? For example, the degrading physical qualities of a 60 year old ref who has been in it for 30 years might put him on par with a 7 yr ref.

I don't know what the average age is that most HS officials take up the avocation, but let's just guess that it is about age 30. That means that your 10 year official is 40 and your 20 year vet is 50.
Do we really want three 50+ officials out there chasing 17 yr old players up and down the court on a State Final?

Clearly experience and age are on opposite sides of the scales. As one gains experience the cost is paid by your youth fading away..
So shouldn't we strive to strike an optimum balance between the two?
What is that point? I think that would make for an interesting debate.

Why not? :confused: I've seen it on NCAA championship games.

in Michigan
 

Rut,
I've never heard of more than on woman official in a boys' state final, but oatmealqueen has worked a boys' final at all 4 divisions in Michigan.
mick

In my association, older (50+) officials who work top shelf games only lose those games through injury and/or retirement. I have yet to see any of them get "pushed down the ladder".

Also, for some odd reason, the average starting age for officials around here seems to be a lot higher than what I see in other areas of the Southeast. We only have one (1) high-quality official who is under 30 (IREFU2, correct me if I'm wrong). When I go to out-of-town camps I see a lot of good, young (under-30) officials.

If they can still do it, with all that experience.... heck yes we do!

Z

Oatmealqueen officiating at 4 boys finals is quite an achievement - kudos to her. This is at least one instance where Michigan's scheduling quirk seems to have benefitted someone!

For other states where the seasons are simultaneous, are boys games and girls games assigned by different associations? If so, this might be part of the problem. Why shouldn't officials for boys and girls games come from the same pool?

Well said!

[quote=Jimgolf]Oatmealqueen officiating at 4 boys finals is quite an achievement - kudos to her. This is at least one instance where Michigan's scheduling quirk seems to have benefitted someone![quote]

Yeah, Jim.
She probably has a coupla grand slams.
...And then there's softball....
mick

Boy's and Girl's basketball are not the same game. That should be enough to keep the pools separate.

Peace

In Washington State, some areas have merged associations that assign the same pool for girls and boys games. Others have separate associations (one for girls and one for boys), but even in those areas many of us choose to work for both associations thereby creating the same pool.

Most associations have a local rule where you are limited to how many consecutive times you can go to state in a row for that particular association. So sometimes you see the same official working a girls state tournament one year and a boys state tournament the following year.

Z

Grade school and high school aren't the same game either; should those pools of officials be kept separate as well?

Yes.
 

In my opinion the answer to that is yes. And the reality to that question is this already takes place all over the place. Unless someone does not have a real job, not too many people can work several levels and be affective as an official working all levels, all the time.

Peace

I'm not saying that it doesn't in fact happen, I'm asking if it is a good thing. Are we putting the best product on the floor to provide the best service for the athletes?


I'm not contesting the facts of the way it is. I'm asking you:

Are you happy with that? Is that a good system? Do you think that their spots should be up for grabs each year if there are people out there who can make that challenge?

So, are you saying that there should be a pool/association of officials that just does grade school games? And there's a different pool/association of officials that work HS varsity boys? And then a different association that works only HS girls? And the members of each association shouldn't work games that the other associations work?

How did grade school come into this conversation?

In our state you cannot work both Boy's and Girl's playoffs. You definitely cannot work Men's and Women's basketball at the same time.

In many cases you cannot get assigned both boy's and girl's basketball without getting a lot of grief for it (might hurt in assignment with boy's games for sure).

I know I do not speak for myself on this issue. I do not work both by choice and by the accepted practices of assignors and fellow officials. I know an assignor that told and official he would not be hired in his conference because he was a "girl's official." So yes, there is a pool of officials that only make themselves available for one side or the other. And let us not talk about college officiating and how that is even more split.

Peace

It doesn't. It's just an observation of the typical career projression of the majority of officials. Some get there much quicker, some never do.

Come on, we're not talking 60 year olds. The guys I'm talking about are in their 30's and 40's. I certainly agree with you on your point...there comes a time when age takes it's toll. There are very few 60 year old ref's working varsity ball and those that are work lower levels.

Again, wrong ages. Most of the bunch is 35-40 with may a couple approaching 50....most of them also work college ball. They are the best officials, even if a couple of them couldn't match up with a 17 year old in a sprint.

Absolutely. But the point of my posts was that some good officials are giving it up before they even have any real experience...after 2-4 years. It's a phenomona all to common in modern culture....everyone wants to be hired into a CEO position straight out of college.

When I asked if the pool of grade school and high school officials should be kept separate, you said yes. I was just trying to determine how far you were willing to segregate officials.
That's not entirely true. I've worked both girls and boys regionals, in the same season. Now, it is true once you are picked to move further, you cannot work both because they are happening simultaneously. But I know of several officials that have worked state championship games in both boys and girls, in different seasons.
Well, I can't help but say the following: I'm not sure how it is where you live, but where I live (sorry ;) ) that's not entirely the case. Many of the schools in our area hire their own officials, and many officials work both girls and boys varsity. Some AD's of the smaller schools almost require doing both. There are, of course, some officials that only work boys varsity by their own choice. There are also some class AA leagues that use an assignor, but I have seen officials that work both sides of those leagues as well.
I'm well aware of that. At least in college, there are different rules, mechanics and philosophies between the games. I suppose the prevailing thought is that in order to be good, you should concentrate on one or the other. As an official moves up in college, men's or women's, they are also encouraged to give up high school games for this reason.

But, in HS, the rules and mechanics are the same; the only difference is the style of play. So, if you are a good official, shouldn't you be able to adjust to different styles of play? If you're only good enough to do the boys' style, and not the girls', maybe you're good enough to work the boys' game where they fast break and shoot 3's all night, but you're not good enough to adjust to the boy's game where they run set offenses all night, right? Is there any difference in how you interact with a boy's team's coach vs. a girl's team's coach? How specialized are you as an official? Or, are you just a good official? I'm not sure there are specific answers; each person might have different likes and dislikes - just something to think about.

Exactly, because even at any one level, every game is different in style, talent, speed, etc. etc. etc. Good officials adjust.

Z

I never said to "segregate" anyone. I said that you will have a different group working one level and a different group working another. Usually the very new officials start out at the grade school level and the veterans spend most of their time working. Now where I started officiating, the only reason officials were able to work because the IESA started in the fall and much of the season was over before the HS season had even got its legs. Now where I live where there are almost no IESA games and the JH seasons run with the HS seasons, you cannot do all levels unless you want to stay married or not piss off your children.

M&M, I am not saying there are not people that work both, but there are many more officials in the area I live than in other parts of the state. Most officials do not work a full schedule of both. First of all they could not if they wanted to because officials have other obligations. Now in rural Illinois and where schools make the assignments, it is much more common and necessary to work both. Where I live, there are assignors that will not hire you on the Boy's side if you work Girl's games. Are there guys that work both? Yes, but they usually are not playoff Boy's officials or they work for the very few assignors that assign both (which is rare BTW) in a particular conference. I have even had assignors tip toe around the issue of asking me (and other officials) to work a girl's game and I have never made it know that I would never work a girl's game. They look at what I am already doing and come to a conclusion. Also when guys work the state finals, they do not do it in the same year (which is practically impossible with they way the games run). They do it years apart from each other and more and more this is become rare. If you look in the handbook, I can only remember one official that has worked a Class AA Boy's Final that has previously worked a Girl's Final. What you are saying might have been more common 10 years ago, but now it is very rare.

Remember you asked what I feel it should be. You did not ask me what it is across the board. I gave you an opinion and I feel that way quite strongly. I also do not see many officials that can successfully make the transition.


Well I can tell you that many high level officials do not completely give up their roots in HS officiating if there are not major conflicts. Unless an official is working several D1 conferences and many still stick to HS ball on some level. All the D1 officials I know personally still work HS games. The only one I know that might not work a single HS game just worked his first NCAA Tournament game this year and is a HS assignor. Even he gets out and works a game or two to cover the schedule on his days off.

Well the styles and expectations are a big factor if you ask me. I have found that a lot of girl's coaches expect little contact to be called and when you do not all hell break loose. If you call that kind of game in a boy's game (and conference factors as well) and will get run out of the entire league. Of course I could adjust, but many do not do it very well from my opinion. I hear that "adjust" point of view all the time but I do not see many successfully "adjust." I am also speaking from experience, because I worked both for several years. I cut back greatly on working girl's basketball not because it was hard to do, but the expectations that I had and the coaches wanted were not the same.

Here is another thing; we are never going to agree on this. If you feel you can do both you have a right to feel that way. I can tell you the people that are making decisions on who works what and when, do not agree with that point of view. I also do not go by what people say I go by what they do. Remember we have an assignor for girl's basketball and an assignor for boy's basketball. Robinson is not around anymore and the way things were done with Robby has changed. Unless something drastically changes in the current system, you will see fewer officials working both in this era. We must also make it clear that there is a huge difference between rural Illinois and metropolitan Illinois. Even in rural Illinois where some conferences have an assignor, I can tell you they do not just put anyone on the both sides very often. I still work games in some of those conferences and I have never been asked to ever work a girl's game and I never told anyone to not hire me on the girl's side.

Peace

In my association, we don't have separate pools. And, if my quickly fading memory serves me correctly, in the past 4-5 years we have had female officials working quarter-final and semi-final games at state. I believe we had a female official from our association work the girls AA final 3 years ago. Our classifications are A, AA, and AAA. Boys & girls finals for all 3 classifications are played the same day - same location. First game at 11:00 and last one at 9:00. Man, your butt really gets sore sitting that long. My wife has been gracious enough to grant me a "kitchen pass" for that day for the last 5 years.:)

Well, I was hoping not to go there, but yes I wish the spots were up for grabs each year, but that's not happening here. We had 2 vets retire this off-season so that will open up a lot of "top" games. None of the over-50 guys on my board go to any type of camps in the off-season, not even the local "get the rust off" HS team camps. They just show up in the fall and work their normal schedule. When one of them gets hurt or retires, then better games open up for younger officials.

That's not realistic nor would it be fair in my region. My schedule was all varsity last year, but it was about 60-40 tilted to the Girls side. Most officials wouldn't want to work if they knew there were only going to get a Girls schedule. A good official should be able to make the game-by-game adjustment from a GJV to BJV to GV to BV to NCAA (JuCo Men in my case). I agree with the separation at the NCAA level b/c of the different rules, coverage areas, and mechanics. But HS and below I see no need for a separate pool, nor would it work here in Virginia.

I hate to contradict you, but one of our association members worked through the Boys AA secitonals and a Girls AA Super-Sectional. He works high level games throughout the season in both Boys and Girls action. Some areas may frown on it, but certainly not all of your STATE.

I did not say there were not expectations or a couple of people that did that. I can tell you having personally tracked the Class A Boy's State Finals and I know the two people that sent emails to associations all across the state for Class AA Boys and Girls Class A and AA Playoffs there were only a handful of people that even worked both. I worked a regional a couple of years ago with an official that worked a Class AA Girl's Super-Sectional and Class AA Boy's Sectional in the same year. The next year he worked the State Finals in Class AA Girls and he did not get a single Class AA Boy's assignment. I can tell you he was not happy. I also have know two officials that worked Class AA Boy's Regionals for years, then when they worked the Class AA Girl's Final for two years, they did not get any assignments for Boy's anymore. They need around 160 officials for Class AA assignments. If all you can come up with is one or two guys that work both that does not sound like a ringing endorsement to me. I think you need to look at the numbers overall and not a couple examples of people that work both.

There are 64 Class AA Regionals throughout the entire State of Illinois. They need at least 192 officials to work those regionals at 3 officials for one site (some regionals have 3 extra officials to help work a double header). I bet there were not 10% of those on the Boy's side that worked a single Girl's playoff game. Many do not make themselves available. Others do not get assigned or work enough games to get assigned girl's games.

Peace

I also know of at least two officials in our association alone that did not work <B>any</B> girls' varsity games during the season, but still received a girls regional assignment, at least 2 years running. So we can probably bat around a bunch of numbers for a while and not come to many conclusions.

But, here are my questions to you:
- Do you feel we should separate "girls" and "boys" officials?
- If so, why? If not, why not?
- If so, do you feel the "better" officials should be on the boys side? In other words, do feel the boys game is a "better" game, and deserves more or most of the "better" officials? Or should officials be assigned or hired without regard for which type of game is being played that night?

Yes there should be separation if possible. There should be no separation as officials are starting out and learning the game. When you make that move to the varsity level, there should be a pool of officials that work the girl’s and a different pool that work the boy’s. The reality in this state about the separation there is pretty much already the case over most of the state. I work in many conferences outside of the Chicago area and I know officials that live in the bigger cities outside of Chicago and it is not common that you will work those big schools working both girl’s and boy’s basketball in those same conferences.

I do not feel officials can effectively work both. The standards are different, the expectations are different and the games are different. I worked a big AAU tournament and the things that were expected to be called would never fly on the boy’s side. Girls would barely touch each other and coaches were screaming for fouls. When I would explain things like “there was no advantage” or “the defender was just standing there and the shooter caused all the contact,” I got looks as if I turned a different race. My game clearly did not fit in to this situation. My partner called any little contact no matter how hard or if the contact actually knocked anyone down. Also this tournament was associated with a D1 Women’s camp. I was only working games that were two person and I am being compensated for my time while most of the officials paid to get seen, I could not recognize the same officials and the way they called the game. I attended a high level D1 camp on the Men’s side and it looked like another world.

The better officials should work wherever they want to work. If an official prefers the Girl's side, more power to them. I just do not see many that can affectively go back and forth and call the game the way it is expected to. I think you are better off to concentrate on one or the other. I do not know why when these conversations come up; it always has to be about where the better officials should go. The one thing

The problem with girl's basketball here, I saw during a Christmas Tournament an official wear black jeans and the assignor and no one batted an eye.

Peace

Definitely a regionalized opinion and system. Not the same here in VA.

Yep
 

Yes red over red is bad. Gotta have at least one experienced ref on the floor.

Agreed.


Come check out my area. :(


Wow, if you folks have a bunch of 35-40 yr olds with 15-20 yrs of exp, then you are either very fortunate or are doing your recruiting, training, and retention very well. I'd guess that most of them are in the 7-12 yrs of exp range though and that is how long I think that it takes to really become a top level official.


Yep, that's a problem. Some actually bail out only a year or two before they are going to working those big games.

Well, I doubled checked with real data. My estimations were off just a little...by about 5 years. Of our tourney officials, we actually have several in their lower 40's and a few in their late 30's with the average being in the mid 40's. I don't have data on when they actually started but I know that all but a couple were established officials when I started in 1993. Additionally, all of them are very fit atheletically.

We do have a fairly low turnover after the first few years. A lot of new officials come in thinking they'll get varisty games in 2-3 years and are disappointed when they realize that it's not going to happen. There are a lot of good officials with 5-10 years experience in line for the varsity games. A newer official will not likely pass them up unless the newer official is clearly better (it does happen). If you work at it, your schedule will steadily improve.

The good retention probably comes from a longtime, steady leader that doesn't typically shuffle people quickly up or down. He's been the commissioner of our association longer than all but a few of our officials have even been officiating....something like 30 years. The retention of more experienced officials would dramitically degrade if you started pushing guys back down before they really couldn't do the job only because a younger, faster official was only just as good. It's a little bit old-school...with loyalty to those who've delivered for you in the past until they show they can't do it anymore.