Opinions Sought

[ChuckElias]

Officiating college ball will almost definitely help your officiating at the HS level. I'm very confident of that. But if that's your only reason for moving to the college level, I don't think it's worth it. There are other ways to improve your HS officiating. You can go to camps that are aimed at college officials. They will teach "college-level" techniques and philosophies that you might not hear otherwise. You can find a buddy who does work college ball and go to his/her games and ask LOTS of questions.

Working college ball is a MUCH bigger time commitment and usually involves a lot more travel than HS ball. (My longest drive for a college game is 3.5 hours. My longest drive for a HS game is 40 min.) Additionally, I'm required to be at the game site 1.5 hours before tip-off. So if I have to drive 3 hours to Vermont, that's 6 hours of driving time, plus 1.5 of sitting at the game site, plus 2 hours for game and shower.

Plus you have to attend meetings for college ball which may not be very close to you. My pre-season meeting was a 2-hour drive each way this year, and the meeting itself was 3 hours. So your whole Sunday is shot. And since I couldn't make my "local" meeting this year (due to a scheduling conflict), I had to go to an alternate meeting, which was 3+ hours away. This is all for a D3 schedule, BTW.

If this all fits into your lifestyle, and you feel excitement over "moving up", then absolutely go for it. I'm not trying to discourage you. And it will definitely help your HS game. But if you're only doing it to get to a state final, I don't personally think it's necessarily the best way to go. I would instead invest in some high-quality camps, spend 2 or 3 weeks over the summer to polish my game, and let my supervisors know about it.

On the other hand, if there's a Juco league in your area that doesn't require a lot of travel and time commitment, then that's something that would definitely be worth looking into. There's nothing like that around me, but other areas of the country may do things differently. If so, that's what I would aim for.

Again, I would in no way try to discourage you if it's what you want to do. I just want to give you a picture of how things work around here so that you can have a little more info before making a decision. Good luck with whatever you decide.