Carpooling To Games
 

Hey guys. I went to our 1st meeting of the year and one thing we discussed was about the gas situation. Several years ago we started using Arbiter, as of now the crew for each game can only see their partners. So the question was asked if the V crew could some how contact the JV crew( or vice versa) so there could be some carpooling to their games.I found out tonight the only way that could be done was to open up the schedule of every game to all officials, in which we have not done for 3 years now.So my question to this forum is what or how does your association do to help situations like this,Our board does not really want to open the schedule to all officials. Thanks


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We are encouraged to carpool whenver possible, but JV & V do not do so. I did once a couple of seasons ago with the guy who lives down the street. I had the JV & he had the V at a school 15 miles from here. Anyone can see the schedule.

Associations do not assign us games, assignors do in my area. And unless I live close on in the same area of the officials that I am working with, carpooling would be difficult. Even if you live in relatively the same area, we are not coming from the same place. I cannot always structure my travel to games based only on where I live. I might be in other places because of my real job. And it would be really hard to drive with officials working a game earlier than I am scheduled. Unless the assignor strictly puts people together that live or work that close, I do not see how for a high school game this is really possible most of the time.

Peace

Our JV games start early. There's no way I would leave an hour earlier just to carpool with those officials, even if they lived next door. If I was a JV official, I wouldn't want to sit through an entire game, postgame, shower, etc. either so I could get home after 11PM in some cases.

I agree with the previous posters. JV and varsity crews riding together doesn't make sense for us. Yes, gas is expensive. But I'm not leaving two hours earlier just to save $10 on gas.

I would be happy to work both games as a 3-man crew, though. We're still struggling in some areas to bring three in, and I think this would be a good solution and would also give some new blood exposure to varsity basketball.

You are correct that right now, Arbiter only allows you two options as far as seeing other officials. 1) Only see your partners. 2) Allow officials to see the master schedule with slots which means everyone can see all assignments.

I think your only hope would be to contact Arbiter and ask for an "enhancement" that allows officials to see their partners and any other officials at their site for a particular day. I think that would be a rather complex enhancement so don't hold your breath. (Our groups have been unsuccessful at getting Arbiter support to make even the slightest enhancement requests).

Both of our associations were concerned that opening up Arbiter for all to see would create the "Joe got a better schedule than I did" problem. One of our associations finally opened it up and it has not been a problem.

Even with that Arbiter feature open, JV and V officials do not ride together. Many of our varsity officials go early to observe the JV game. However, asking them to get there even earlier (so the JV officials could pregame etc.) would be too much.

Enhancements like seeing other officials at the same venue are not difficult.

It's just a clause in the IF statement along with the appropriate SQL statement. Testing for an equal venue and date is easy. If the code is written well, I don't see it being more than a weekend of easy-on-the-brain work.

I'd never heard of jv and varsity carpooling together. In my last area, this was done for one venue due to the drive (more than 100 miles round trip). The driver got mileage, and the v/jv games were split with one official working two varsity games and the other four officials working a varsity/jv split. The varsity guy had to be early for the jv games, two guys had to sit through a game in the middle, and two guys had to sit at the end and wait through the last game.

We're doing that about 4 times next season. three-whistle, both games 110 miles to Hurley, Wisconsin. :)

I save gas going to games by riding my skateboard. If another official wants to hop on and share the ride, that's cool with me.

It's difficult if the folks are Arbiter refuse to do it.

We had a guy work the LL state tournament in Wausau this year who actually lives in Ironwood, but was introduced as being from Hurley, WI.

Wonder if we could arrange a game sometime. It'd be a considerably longer drive for me, though.

You are probably talking about Sammy. He has also worked Wisconsin HS tourney. :)

Working in Hurley would prolly be about a 5 hours run ?

Edited direction.

Yup; could be they have other directions for product development.