Finding a Crew
 

Gentlemen,

This is my seventh year offiating and I was wondering if anybody had any good advice on finding a crew to work with. I consider myself a decent official and would have gotten my first sectional last year barring an injury. I live in northeast Indiana and my association has very slim pickings at this point. I'm having problems breaking into some of the "clicks" and getting games. I pick up a lot of games on my own but to get the varsity schedule I want I need to get on a crew. Most AD's are really stressing having a whole crew. If anybody knows somebody that is looking please contact me.

I think that after 7 years you must have made friends with some of the officials you've partnered with. Networking is the answer to getting through cliques. Create your own clique.

Now if you haven't made any friends in your 7 years, I think it's time to start buying the beer after some of the games you work.

Unlike football having a regular "crew" in my area for basketball is a foreign concept.

I believe that the ADs in your area are stressing it for one reason only, simplicity for them in filling games.

I personally feel that having regular crews is not a good thing for the game of basketball.

I also feel that AD's shouldn't be assigning games but that it a topic for another thread. I am lucky that the majority of games of mine are assigned by an assignor.

In Illinois and outside the Chicago area most of the state that I am aware of uses partners. I do not think there is a trick to doing that other than finding people that you will get along with and that have similar philosophies. In most cases you do not find partners, they tend to find you based on many factors.

This is usually not something you put and ad in the paper and you interview prospective partners and you choose one after going over each resume. Usually your potential partner is someone you know or have worked with many times and you decide to work together.

Peace

I thought that was legal only in Vermont. ;)

But recognized civilly in several other states...

Speak for yourself. I have a regular partner in Wisconsin and we fill our schedule by negotiating with leagues and ADs directly. My integrity is not for sale and I've lost a conference because of a couple of well-timed and deserved technicals (they did me a favor -- the closest school in that conference is 70 miles away).

Even with a few schools I won't deal with (and they with me) I work 35-40 varsity dates from the second week of December until the third week of February. It's enough for me (I work football and baseball, too). I work nothing else -- no rec, no AAU, no underclass games, nothing after my final playoff game. After my season ends in early March, I won't work basketball again until early December. I do already have games scheduled for 2010, though.

I could be mistaken but I think I did speak for myself.

I didn't mean to hijack the thread but I must be misunderstanding your point here, isn't this one of the exact things that working for an assignor avoids, the repercussions of calling a T on future assignments?

I worked in both systems, and to a point I still do, and IMVHO working with an an assignor far outwieghs any perceived advantage to working directly with the AD's. You can have all that paperwork and phones calls and positioning for dates and faxing contracts etc etc etc. I have to sign one piece of paper.

I have worked in both systems and still work in both systems currently. The thing that seems to be mostly true of AD assignments, are the fact that ADs are mostly looking to fill their games. They are not looking to always hire the best people or to have set standards that bring the best official to the table. Assignors on the other hand have standards. You might not agree with their standards, but they usually are trying to hire people that they feel are qualified (which are very subjective) to work those games and will not just fill a game to just fill a game. At least that is the case at the varsity level. IN my opinion this is why ADs tend to assign years in advance and assignors will give out their games on a year to year basis.

Each system has their flaws. ADs give many of us some security that we know when and where we will be working for many years in the future. Assignors might not hire you years in advance, but if you are not a bad official, chances are they will continue to use you over and over again.

Peace

This brings to point my original statement regarding the OP's complaint. In his area not only are they mostly looking to fill games, but only having to do it once per game as opposed to 3 times, by stressing a "whole crew".

There are advantages to a crew. I work 90% of my 3-person games with the same two guys and I know their officiating and personalities inside and out and we complement each other well.

I just don't care for putting all the power in one person's hands. I have one conference here that won't hire me. Period. I'm only in my SIXTH year in the state (21st overall) and he just will not hire me. If he was the only assignor, I would not work at all. Nope, I don't like that system.

On top of that, when I worked in an assignor system, he evenly distributed the games and I would sometimes only have 1 or 2 games a week. We weren't allowed to work down (JV/FR) so we got one game for an entire week. Now if I want to work 6 days a week, I can. It's up to me.

I'm curious why you feel having a crew is not good for the game?

First off I'm glad your scheduling situation works out for you.

Just curious, do you ever feel that working with the same two people makes you complacent?

Throwing this out there for debate. What about the (perceived or real) issue that a coach/AD could hire/not hire you or a now a whole crew depending on how it befitted his/her team vs a particular opponent? Now coach B could think not only did we get "homer ref" but now it's "homer crew"?

Yes it's easy for an AD to assign, working with one instead of three. Yes its nice for you because your comfortable. But is it best for the game? Being hired individually by an assigner with random partners would alleviate all those concerns in my opinion.

I work with a crew every night I work. My two partners and me are my "crew", we work together and I trust them and they trust me.

Then the next night I get to work with a new crew. ;)

I have by quirks of scheduling worked with the same people more than two games in a row, i personally don't like it.

I feel working with new people keeps me sharp and focused and makes me take care of my own business. My opinion.

I too have a partner and we have a third for our 3 person games as well. We contact AD's ourselves to contract for games JV and below. Varsity contests are scheduled by conference commissioners who I assume are the same as your assigners.

If a commissioner contacts the head of our association to get officials for varsity contests - a 3 man committee of experienced officials in the association assign them to the people who have enough officiating experience - that they feel would do a good job, and usually to partners if possible. There have been times when partners have been split because one was not yet ready for that level of play. Other times - partners may split for an evening if one or the other has some type of conflict with a particular team. example - I was once assigned to do a varsity game for the school I work for. I called the commisioner and explained I had a conflict. He called the association president and he and I did one game, my partner and his partner did the other at my school. It all works pretty well.