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


www.kassidyspage.com

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.

Make sure to hide your Tanqueray if Sammy is around. Great guy, would work with him anywhere.

I'll e-mail him that the word is out. ;)

Thanks Guys,alot of good input. Our board does not really want to open the schedules to all officials because there is alot of negativity that comes from some officials.Believe it or not there is alot of carpooling in our areas. Our comm. sets our games where the varisity crew and JV could travel together. It is usually on Friday and Saturday games. That is a perfect time to ride together. We have some of our V guys that comes to their games that is about a 140 mile round trip.There will be 4 of them, the driver will let 2 of them off at their game and proceed on to their game (10 miles away) and pick them up afterwards.We have several groups that would do that. But we are just looking to help on the JV side. We had about 140 officials last year on our team and I know about 90% did both Jv and V games.Heck we have our "Big Time" offficials as well as our college guys doing MS games also. So we pretty much know every one. Its just when the V guys shows up on a Sat and tells the JV If I knew you where here, we could had road together. Last year we only got $6 for gas per game per official on top of our regular game fee.Thanks Again



www.kasidyspage.com

If your commissioner is R.A. then I'm sure he doesn't want to open up the schedule. He definitely has a "worry about your own game" mentality and he hates the back-biting that goes on in officiating.

You are correct. He has put alot of pressure for us to be better on the floor and trust me he is by the book. He does not have a problem putting a "full time" V ref down to the JV level. He also is very rewarding to those who will work hard and keep his phone from ringing. He can open doors for those who can walk thru those doors and not make him look bad.

I used to carpool, but my engine would get too wet.

Hey - who says I don't try to answer these seriously? :confused:

Call this guy. I'm sure he could help you rig something.
 

"I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess." - Man Prayer by Red Green.

In this area, the same two (Or three depending on the conference) officials call the JV and V games in a night. Boys JV/V are Tues/Fri and girls JV/V are Mon/Thurs. Our association has us carpool together if at all humanly possible. We get 40 cents a mile too, so I was surprised to see where someone said they get $6 a game for gas.

That is exactly what we get. Who ever drives to the game,the rest of the crew are suppose to(usually they dont) give the driver $6 for gas. If the dont..... alot of the guys will not allow them to ride again.I guess you could call it a gentlemens agreement. We have not set our gas fee this year, it is up to the board to decide. We are hoping for good increase.



www.kassidyspage.com

Is it not common for the schools to pay the official who drives for mileage?

What happens if they are not?

What about officials that just absolutely cannot get there that early? We encourage the officials that are on the Varsity game to get there for the JV game (and most do), but sometimes work or family obligations make that impossible (not to mention traffic).

The Constitution State
 

Here, in my part of Connecticut, it will hurt your ratings, which will impact your ranking, which will impact the quantity and quality of games that you are assigned.

Not in Virginia. We get paid from our associations. They negotiate contracts with schools/leagues. And travel pay is part of the contract and paid by the schools to the associations.

As far as Varsity officials being mandated to attend JV games, that'll never happen here in my association.

Around here the school will pay one driver mileage...everyone else in the crew gets a flat $10. Almost all of our officials put a note on their pay voucher asking that the mileage and $10 fees be split evenly amount all officials...and most schools comply with the request.

Carpooling is really difficult for most games unless they are at a school in an outlying area. When that is the case, the crew usually meets at a convenient location and one drives from there to the game.

My RefTown software does exactly that. :D

And I do frequently support enhancement requests.