The 3 versus 2 fallacies, a mini-rant

[Rich]

I am still in a state where we work most of our varsity games 2-person. Last night, matter of fact, was the first time we got 3 checks to work 3 person in a varsity game in Wisconsin in our three years of working games 3-person here.

It was a girls game. Evenly matched teams, but certainly not a huge amount of running. And this always gets brought out -- what do we need three for, heck we barely break a sweat in these games?

Why, oh why, is that relevant? Officiating is done best with the EYES, not with the legs. Why would we even use how much we need to run as criteria for working 3 over 2? And yet I hear this most often from OFFICIALS.

Clearly there are other fallacies at work, including the one where we'll "call more fouls" because we have more officials. Nonsense. I'm applying advantage/disadvantage just as stringently in a 3-person game as when I work 2. And we still hate unnecessary game interrupters in 3-person as much as 2-person.

But that's where we are where I live and why I work 10-15 games a year in Illinois where they work 3-person in all varsity games. And my little 3-person crew has been working 10-15 games and collecting only 2 checks for it every year, too. It makes for a better officiated game and frankly, I'd be happy to never work another 2-person game again.

Because my state won't mandate three (give the school districts 2 years to figure out the money and then mandate it), I never see us consistently working 3. And yet, the state managed to get a 5th football official consistently assigned for varsity games about 10 years ago.

End rant.