I'm moving:(

[SMEngmann]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

On our local board, the season in which you pass the written exam and the floor exam, doesn't count as a year. You must work at least three years of only junior varsity ball to move up. You must work at least three years of "split" ball, a combination or junior varsity and varsity games, to move up. Finally, after working at least three years of "split" ball, you can move up to full varsity, i.e all varsity games. So in reality, no matter how good your peer ratings, and rankings, are, you can't get a full varsity schedule until your seventh (or eighth including your first "probation" year) year.

It didn't effect me. I took me four years to make "split", and four more years to make full varsity, two years more than the minumum.

Note: We have over 280 officials, 85 are considered full varsity, 30 are considered "split". We service about 70 high schools, most with both boys and girls programs, as well as many freshman programs, and many middle school programs.

This system is absurd, especially for developing refs. It discourages young officials from taking the time on their own to go to camps, work hard in the offseason and do the things that they need to do to improve their game because outside of college, there really is nowhere to go. As a result, your association loses all of its up and comers completely to college ball and when your varsity guys start to get old, there's a huge shortage of quality officials. I'd be interested to see how many of the 80 or so varsity guys are really too old to be doing V ball and are hanging on too long. That type of situation IMHO does not respect the game of basketball or the avocation of officiating.

We are living in America, where we are supposed to award ability, hard work and achievement. Your system penalizes officials for possessing those qualities and ultimately hurts your association as it denies you top officials and discourages offseason improvement.

Every association should have 2 goals: 1) service the game of basketball by matching the best crew of available officials on each game and 2) service its officials by matching them on games and with partners that allow them to develop and improve. Your group's system does neither.