I am not contacting the school to give out Christmas cards. I am in contact with the school to make sure the game starts at the right time, I am on their schedule for the game, I park in the proper spot if need be, I know who is greeting me or do they need specific information to fill out a check.

Also there are very few problems with most assignors I work for. But there are times when someone makes an honest mistake and the proper people (including myself) were not contacted for the changes.

Peace

The beauty of our system is that we don't have to worry about most of the specifics that you have listed.
1. Our pay is handled by the association. We bill each school district in bulk for their games, the districts send one check to the association, and then the association treasurer deposits those and cuts our individual checks from one central association account every couple of weeks. Thus the schools don't need to know our names for pay.
2. Game times are posted and updated on the computer. When the computer is changed you receive an email from the system.
3. Partners are posted on the computer.
4. I live in the Sierras and I seriously doubt that weather is more of a concern where you are than here. Have you heard of the Donner party or Squaw Valley where the 1960 Winter Olympics were held? We service five schools up at Lake Tahoe. If a game is cancelled due to weather the schools contact the assignor and he calls the officials. We all have cell phones. Over the years we have become quite good at watching the forecasts and making decisions a few hours in advance, so that the word can get to those as necessary.

Our methods seem to work rather well. :)

For those of us who aren't consumed with worry over re-living the Donner experience (and don't live in perpetual fear that an AD might want to contact us) our methods work just as well.

AD wants to contact me? Sure, why not. No one is gonna try and eat our dead bodies, so there's no need to hide.

I'm sure it does, Dan. But there seems to be a few individuals who cannot fathom how it could also possibly work without the officials having any direct contact with the schools, ADs, or coaches. :(

Pay is handled by the schools. It is their money and they pay us how they wish. Whether that is through cash or a check or pay by mail.

I work for a few conferences that have now put all the assignments on the computer. But just like anything, it is only as good as the humans that run it. I had a JV game in late January and I did not contact the school the day of because of past problems getting a call back. Then I show up and my partner shows up for a game that originally had a time change only to be at the game in the 4th quarter. The assignor did not know there was a change and the school was not aware there was a problem. They did have one official that did work the game by himself. I took for granted that the computer was right only to find out that we were late.


I personally do not care about partners. I just want someone to show up most of the time.

I realize this but this in my area weather is a very realistic concern. I have a few games this year cancelled and it was not the assignor that had that information. I even worked a game the first week of December where just about every other game was cancelled. The game was in the city limits of Chicago and it was one of the few games in that particular league that actually played. I contacted the school in order to find out all the possibilities to play. The two schools were rather close to each other, so they did play. Considering that the decision to cancel games are between the participating schools, I do not expect an assignor to relay that information. Officiating is a part time job for most assignors, not everyone is sitting by a phone waiting to call everyone. The AD of a school is doing their job to contact participants of the game. That after all is the AD’s job.

So does our system. I would not have it another way.

Peace

Perhaps you guys who are accustomed to contact with the schools find it difficult to understand how smoothly things can work without a bunch of phone calls. :)

The assignor communicates with the ADs and schools. Officials do not.

I'm assigned a game, I'm there an hour prior. The schools know we will be there. They get a copy of the assignment sheet just like I do. They have no reason to wonder whether we'll be there.

Times, location, teams, and officials are listed on the assignment sheet. If there's a change, they notify the assignor. That's one person. They have his number, they know who to call. They don't have to look up names for 3 JV officials and 3 Varsity officials and try to get up with 6 different people. They make one call if there's a change.

If it's last minute, and I've already left my house for the game when the assignor gets the call, I get paid 1/2 a game fee. If I get to the school and it's been cancelled but they haven't notified the assignor, I get a full game fee. If it's cancelled after I arrive for any reason, it's a half game fee. If we start the game, we could a full fee, come hell or high water. So there's a financial incentive to communicate.

Any information the school needs about me for tax purposes, they get from the assignor. However, unless I make $600 through a school/school district, it's a moot point anyway.

There are no contracts. The NCHSAA tells the schools which booking agency they will use. The assignor is compensated quite handsomely for his duties. He gets $100 for the first team's schedule and $50 for each additional. So a high school with a BV/GV, BJV/GJV, and BFr/GFr would pay a booking fee of $350 for a season. If the school wants the booking agent to write the check, then they send him all game fees and he writes the checks. Schools pay an additional $100 for this service. Each official pays a booking fee of $65. Booking agents do just fine.

In fact, we all do. :)

man, email is the way to go; you just send one email to partner, jv officials, school administrator and you are done, forget the phone thing; I loved the arbiter for that, easy to find and cut and paste emails; now I live in an area where we are supposed to drive to a central location to pick up a hard copy of our assignment (are you kidding me), luckily the assigner has been willing to email the stuff

I know I was not debating which is better, email or phone calls. I agree that email is the best way to go in most situations. The reality is not everyone uses email the same as they do with phones. I know I do not use email all the time and I work with a computer. As it relates to this conversation, not all ADs are in their office. When I do call a school, I usually want to speak to the Athletic Secretary. They have all the information anyway.

Peace

Ordinarily, email is fine. But the phone is a necessary evil when you have a 3pm cancellation for a 6pm doubleheader. You can't be certain that everyone involved will check their email within a three hour time span.

This is why you have a cell phone handy.

Peace

I couldn't imagine a system where the AD/coach deals directly with the officials. I've got experience in 3 sports and each of those three, across the province, uses the official <--> assignor <--> school model.

Weather is quite possibly more of a concern here than most places in the US. I've never had a lacrosse game cancelled or altered. I couldn't tell you when I've had a basketball game changed. (But it has happened; maybe 3-4 times in my career.) Football? Rarely as well. Game mgmt phones or e-mails our assignor, who tells us.

In fact, our football assignor has a Blackberry (I in fact live in the same city as RIMs offices), so he can forward e-mail info from whereever he is. We all know to keep an eye on e-mail if weather is very bad.

No one is questioning which system is better. All I did was respond to nevada's original post where he said he totally disagrees with schools contacting officials. It's not a big deal and some of us do it regularly.

BBR, $65!!! Here in the Piedmont, we pay $75, and I heard it was going up to $100 next year. I thought it was the same acrose the state. Hmmm!

This is much different here in Indiana. All games are scheduled by the Athletic Directors of the schools, so you will get phone calls, emails, and letters from Athletic directors that need to fill games. You are paid by the school that you are working at that day. Most of the time you receive your check for the game as soon as you walk in the door or at least before the game starts. You can also pick up games from other officials, it is a pretty common for officials to give each other games that they can't work or even trading games can happen. I know a lot of states is all through the Association that you belong too but not here in Southern Indiana, all we do with our Association is pay our dues, attend a few meetings, have a golf event in the summer and a banquet in the Spring. We do have a website where we can post our schedule and Athletic Directors can check there to see if we are open on a certain date. Here in Indiana things are done a little different than other states.

I did not say I live in a model where I have to deal with ADs. In most of my games I deal almost entirely with assignors. And now more and more games are assigned completely online. I would still contact the ADs because I am the one responsible for getting to games. ADs also have access to our contact information through out state website and through our any assignor we work for. I worked the last two weeks of playoff games and our information was released to the schools (the state assigns all post-season games) and I had both ADs email or call me about details. If they did not contact me, I would have contacted them. There are things I want to know and I am responsible for I do not expect an assignor to be on top of or even know about.

Peace