Glasses

[matt0t3]

Originally Posted by John H

I've been an official here in Pa for about 15 yrs. While coming up through the JV ranks I always wore my glasses and not contact lens since I thought they were uncomfortable. A few senior officials told me the only way I would get moved up to varsity ball was to wear contacts, so I tried them again. After doing so, I was moved up and have enjoyed doing varsity ball for going on 9 yrs now and even got to do a district final last year. I still don't like wearing contacts and only wear them to do varsity ball. This being said, last March I developed a serious eye infection from using a bad lot of contact lens solution from a manufacturer that was in the news earlier this year. My eye is 100% healed now but...I've decided not to wear contacts ever again after going through that mess. Sooo, my question is...does anyone wear their glasses while officiating? If so, do you do varsity ball? I'm curious to see what if anything is said this season when I wear my glasses and not the contacts. Hopefully nothing.

I'd worn glasses/contacts for years, usually wearing glasses at work (lots of staring at a computer screen) and contacts for more active things (such as basketball). Occasionally, if I was out of contact lens solution, or forgot them at home, I'd wear glasses to a game. It would occasionally lead to a sarcastic comment, but the type of people you hear it from are the kind of coaches/players/fans that would be in your face about something even if you didn't wear glasses.

That said, I used (the equivalent of) my game fees from the last year or two to get myself laser eye surgery this summer - now I'm ready to go with 20/16 vision in both eyes! It might not be something you're interested in (there is a definite "ick" factor, especially if you just had a bad experience with an infection, and it can be fairly costly), but I would highly recommend it for anyone who's on the fence right now.