I try to keep most HS games within an hour and a half away. Where I live you can go 30 miles and it will take you over an hour to get to a game. I have and will work HS games that take longer than 2 hours away. I also go back and work games in the area I started. Because I have family and friends still in that area I can work games that are technically over 3 hours from my current residence, but do not require a very long round trip.

College games can take up to 4 hours (one way) to work. Fortunately those are not things that happen very often.

Peace

Probably 90+% of my HS games are within 3-4 miles of my home with at least half inside 2 miles and one school right across the street. I walk to a lot of my games. Most of the gyms for rec leagues are in about the same radius. If I get some womens NCAA DII games this year (fingers crossed) they play in the same close-to-home gyms except for one 30-odd mile drive to the north shore. Yet another reason to love Honolulu :)

Different story, however, when I called in the Florida panhandle. 50-125 miles one-way 2-4 nights per week to call two games (varsity & JV) was not unusual. One season several schools even played the girls varsity game the same night as the boys varsity & JV trying to drum up more interest in the girls game...that meant three games for one crew with the toughest, the boys varsity, the last game. No mileage, though we did eventually get $10 per trip per 3-man crew...whoohoo! :rolleyes:

I don't miss Florida, except for one big thing...the quality of the games was much, much better there.

I went to camp in Orlando a couple years ago ( http://forum.officiating.com/showthread.php?t=9469 ) and most of the games were held at Disney's Wide World of Sports facility, but some of the games were held at "local" high schools. We didn't have to go 50 miles, but those games were spread out; a good half hour to forty minutes apart. So we would start out at the Milk House for morning meetings, then maybe drive 40 minutes to our first game, then maybe have to drive another 30 minutes to the site of the second game, then 40 minutes back to the hotel. It wasn't fun, but the camp was pretty darn good. Would've been better if all our games were at the Milk House, but camp is camp.

I sense a 'milk is good for growing bones' joke is not far away.

I agree on getting there at least a hour before. You have to have that unwind time. And some pregame that at least covers your areas of concern i.e. if the ball pops out in the backcourt and I'm at trail and you r @ center and I look @ u and u give me the hand flick (for touch) I will know. Most get to work with some of the same guys. Thats when I think its good to discuss plays, angles and situations.
If we r not constantly trying to get better we r hurting the game.