First Season
 

Did you all get a lot of games your first season? Or was it a struggle at first?

That's a loaded question that can depend on a great many things - location, level, your expectations, amount of leagues in your area, amount of officials in your area, etc.

Where I come from you can do a lot of Rec Ball and lower level school league games (7th and 8th grade) to see a lot of plays and get a lot of experience under your belt. But, I live in a very populated area with a great many leagues. If you live in a smaller, more rural area, you may have to go farther and your opportunities may be more limited. I've averaged about 100 games a yr (non-varsity for the most part) and I started my first yr with 50 Rec games.

Do you know an assignor or senior official? That can certainly help. ;)

Good luck.

Thanks grune. I'm from the suburbs of Chicago, so I would think my situation might be similar to yours.

I don't know any assignors at the moment, but I'll be heading to JRutledge's Accosciation meeting in a couple weeks.

Well then, I recommend snuggling up to JR! ;)

Gotta ask ya. Your profile says Bloomington, Indiana. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago and never realized Bloomington, Indiana was a suburb. Is it that you attend college there but live near the windy city? If so, whereabouts?

Ya, Bloomington is a far South suburb:p

For real though, I went to school at IU, but just graduated in May and moved back home. I'm in Rolling Meadows, in the NW burbs

Like you, I'm a long time umpire who started the journey to become a high basketball referee last year. Every bit of advice you've received from everyone in answer to your OP is absolutely on target...esp. the replys about umpiring skills that transfer over well to basketball. Game management, appearence, how you carry yourself on the court etc. I certainly experienced just about everything that's already been mentioned in my first year....it was quite the learning experience.
As a fellow ump who made the move to try to become a ref, I'll leave you with three things:
1) I had trouble with (what I described to the vets here in a post last year) "slowing the game down." I seemed so fast to me that plays were just "overrunning" me. I got a ton of good tips here as far as working on this..and by about the 3/4 point of my season I got a lot better in this area.

2) Work as many games as you can as a new official. One of the many things that I learned from the regulars on this board is that you need reps, reps, reps, and more reps to develop as an official.
Seeing plays, working your PCA, developing yourr mechanics. At any level of play you can be and want to be working on these things every time your on the court.

3) As an experienced official from another sport, you'll have a good sense of what you need to do and how far you need to go to get an initial level of proficency and confidence on the court.

Welcome to the board...good luck with your first year. Hang around here...take it from me, if you want to learn the folks here will be helpful in everyway possible...they'll make your tranistion to the sport a lot easier.
KJump