What Should You Do About Bad Officiating

[SMEngmann]

Rut mentioned the pay issue, and that clearly is a large part of it. Clearly the officiating in the summer and most AAU tournaments is worse than it is during the regular season, but that doesn't mean that officiating in general sucks and the first place to look is at those coaches and tournament directors who run the tournaments.

As Rut mentioned, many of the regular officials do not regularly work summer ball games, though some do. In AAU in particular the pay sucks, they play full length games with stop clock and some rule variations, yet they pay the officials no more than 1/2 of a normal game fee. Because the pay sucks, most officials would not be willing to work just 1 or 2 games because financially, it doesn't make sense. Most of the established guys do not want to work 4 or 5 (or in extreme cases 10-12) games in a row because there's no way anyone can maintain the focus and hustle needed to work the games well. So you end up getting guys who are willing to work that many games who are likely less experienced, and by the end of the day, tired. You get what you pay for.

Another aspect, which also goes directly to money, is that the atmosphere in a lot of these games is very unfriendly to officials. In a regular season game, there are rules of conduct that players and coaches must abide by and consequences if they don't (i.e. suspensions, possibility of getting fired). In summer league, there's no accountability because the coaches are paying the tournament director, who will often hang out the officials to dry because the coach is the one generating income, and they can always find another warm body. I've seen some AAU tournaments with "court monitors" (who incidentally have no officiating experience) who coaches can complain to during the game about the officials, and I've heard about officials getting removed during games over some calls and sent home. This sort of atmosphere encourages trouble-makers and discourages quality officials from working these games.

As a result, you get what you pay for, tired officials who are either in it for the money, trying to gain experience to move up and maybe the occasional solid ref. Officiating is a necessary evil of summer ball and viewed only as a fixed cost and not as a part of the game. Colleges in team camps use players to ref and tournament directors find the lowest common denominator, a warm body willing to work long hours for little pay. If you wonder why the officiating sucks and want to complain, tell your coach/tournament director to pony up for officials.