Conference Officials?
 

I was listening to a local sports talk show today and the host was talking about the University of Pittsburgh's chances in the NCAA tournament. He was concerned that Pitt's big man (I forget his name) would get into foul trouble because they would be seeing non-Big East officials at the tournament. In his expert opinion:rolleyes: he thought that Big East officials let the players get away with a lot of contact and officials from other conferences would not be so lax in enforcing the rules.

A caller tried to convince him that officials were officials and that most officials who work D1 will call pretty much the same game. But as I said the host is an expert in all things sports-related and he was adamant that each conference had its own stable of officials and each conference differed in how much contact was allowed.

I don't know for sure but it seems like many officials work for more than one conference. I was just curious if D1 officials usually only work in one conference or if they work for several?

Oh, and just to show demonstrate this guy's immense knowledge of all things sports-related, he said after the Rose Bowl that part of the reason Penn State lost to USC was because JoePa coached from the press box which gave Pete Carrol an advantage. The advantage was that Carrol could "work the officials", hence USC got all of the close calls.

The guy's an idiot.

If you are working one of the big conferences like the Big East, Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Conference USA, Big 12 or Pac-10, you are working other conferences. For one no officials just goes to one of those camps and gets hired without having some experience or working in the lesser conferences first. And officials working in one of these big conferences are likely working other Big Conferences. For example, Ed Hightower is from Illinois but works the Big 10, Big East, Conference USA and Big 12 along with many smaller Midwestern conferences. The same thing goes for Jim Burr who lives out east and works the same conferences Hightower works. There are many other examples of this, but you get the idea.

BTW, stop listening to talk radio for sports expertise.

Peace

Was this Mark Madden by any chance?

There's been a perception in the media for a LONG time that upper east coast* and midwest officials allow a more physical game. Unfortunately, there seems to be a similar bias for these officials come late NCAA tournament assignment time.

*This was started back when the Big East was (mostly) DC on up rather than spread out as it is now.

There is really no such thing as "conference officials". If you look at statsheet.com/mcb/referees, you'll see the top 100 officials in certain categories (but don't fall for it all!), and you can see the variety of games these guys are working, and the variety of conferences.

I heard from an official who has worked the 1st round in the last 2 NCAA-W's tournaments that officials will be staying closer to home this year to save on travel costs.

Referee website
 

Here is a website that shows the referees and the conferences they work in.
http://statsheet.com/mcb/referees/

Both Parties are somewhat correct....

Conference commissioners will have certain things that they want done in their conference. However, contact is not one of them. Most are mechanical type things i.e. How to handle double whistles in the paint, signal of 3 pt. attempt etc.

Conferences do hire a staff of officials. There will be newbies that will only work pre conference games. There will be 3 - 4 year veterans of the conference that will call the perceived lower level conference games. Some conferences have different tiers of officials. Pay is the big difference. Missouri Valley has three levels, $2500 for top tier and bottom tier is about $1200. Do not quote me on this.

Some conferences have agreements and work together. SEC, ACC, Big South, Southland, etc used to work on developing new officials. They all started in the mid majors and below at the D1 level. They would gradually move up to BCS level conference. Curtis Shaw is a perfect example of this. He started college b-ball via camps and rapidly moved up from Ohio Valley and Southland into SEC, ACC etc.

The top 100 officials will work in multiple conferences. They also have some dues to pay. For example, Hightower still works Mo Valley and I am sure that he feels some allegiance for Mo Valley getting him started in D1.

The rocky moutains do a pretty good job of separating officials geographically. None of the east coast big timers work the west coast and vice versa. Go to the website mentioned above and you can see that.

My $.02

I read an article about a day in his life on the road as an official, and that was one of his reasons for still doing Mo Valley games. Another reason was geographic logistics, since he does have the ridiculously busy job as superintendent of the Edwardsville, Illinois, School District, and doesn't like being too far away from Edwardsville too much.

There was an article on Randy McCall last year. He has (or had?) a public education job and the new leadership at the school district had a problem with the amount time he was missing from school, particularly certain events they felt he should be required to attend.

Was this the guy in the Cherry Creek schools (Denver, CO)?

Yes, that's it.

Here it is:

http://cbs4denver.com/investigates/r....2.670612.html

Is There A Reward ???
 

Did anybody else recognize the mugshot, top row, second from left? What's the America's Most Wanted phone number where we call in tips? This "mug" lives in the "Bay State". I bet the police can find him at Fenway Park in a few weeks.

I checked the website recently, and it appears that the authorities have captured ChucKElias, because his "mugshot" is no longer featured on the website. I guess that what the US Marshals say is true, they always get their man, or in this case, their squirrel.