Quick Question.....
 

Hey, how are yall doing? This is my first season becoming an official, and I am in the middle of a lengthy 8-week class which covers officiating basketball.

I just want to know what are the pros and cons of being officiated with a Board Association and having them assign all your games, Rec games included.

First of all you have to deal with the system that is available to you. I do not live in such a system where that would even be an option. We work with primarily conference assignors (sometimes schools) that assign their games outside of association membership. If you are in a system where the association or board gives you no other options, I know I would not like to be in that system personally, but if there is nothing I can do about it, then I would have to live with it.

Peace

We have an assigner that goes through the arbiter to assign games in the 3 high school districts that they work with. Then, their is another assigner that assigns the recreation games during the weekends in I believe 3 different cities.....I would assume their is a lot of games, but theirs also a percentage that they get from each game we work.

I have not experienced how it is yet, because it is my first year, I was just wondering what other peoples opinions were.

There are probably pros and cons to each systems.

I have heard of officials who were blackballed by certain schools/coaches etc... In our area, all games are assigned by our zone assignor who is elected annually. I work for two assignors (one for HS one for college) thus if a coach wants to stop from doing his games, he has to convince my assignor and our assignors do not do that unless the issue is lack of professionalism. The downside of our system is that you may may not feel that your assignor treats you right. My experience has been that the guys who think they should doing better games are not as good as they think they are. Our assignors are generally fair.

And yes assignors get 8% our fees but they work very hard for that. The number of calls/e-mails is quite staggering.

My experience and observations closely mirror Jay R's. I have had a very positive experience working for just one or two assigners who assign lots of schools and leagues. But, if that's the system you're working under, you need to be smart about managing your relationship with that assigner. (Who was it that said, "Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket."?)

Here are some observations and advice from my experience with such assigners.
* Observation: Building a schedule is more complex than it appears. Advice: Talk with a few veterans in your area and ask them about the ins and outs of exactly how things work.
* Observation: Assigners, like most folks, prefer people they know and trust. Advice: Meet the assigner ASAP. He needs to put a face with the name. Make a good first impression.
* Observation: Assigners believe the evil you know is better than the evil you don't. Advice: Get seen ASAP. There will be a small number of "right people" who need to see you in order for you to work and move up. One of those will be the assigner. Find out how you can work in front of him, so he can make an informed assessment of your abilities. Assume your first few partners will have been asked to give feedback on you to the assigner. The officials on games following yours may also provide the assigner feedback on you. Don't let that get in your head, but be aware of it.
* Observation: All assigners have their likes and dislikes, and preferred ways of working. Advice: Find out how your assigner likes to work. Does he prefer to communicate via phone calls, emails, IMs, text messages? When is the best time to call if you need to? What are his pet peeves and hot buttons? What does he like?
* Observation: Assigners want to accomplish the greatest amount of work (i.e., covering games) with the least amount of work (i.e., phone calls). They hate doing work twice. Advice: If he's using the Arbiter, get your block calendar filled in early and keep it up to date. You want every experience your assigner has with you to be a positive one for him. Declining or turning back games because of conflicts you knew existed, can only hurt you.
* Observation: An unavailable official is useless to an assigner. Advice: Be available as much as possible. Be most available when your assigner needs help the most.
* Observation: You cannot control the assignments, only your response to them. Advice: Accept that your assigned schedule, as a newbie, will be fairly light. Normally the bulk of a rookie's schedule will comes from "turn backs". But in these challenging times, don't expect many of those either. After all your hard work, enthusiasm and anticipation, that can be very disappointing. But remember you are in this for the long haul. Be grateful for what you get and maintain a positive attitude. Work to improve your schedule every year.
* Observation: The less notice your assigner has, the harder it is to fill an assignment. Advice: Your assigner has an ordered list of the officials most likely to solve his problem on short notice. You want to be on that list. Keep your bag packed and in your car at all times. Let your assigner know that you will go any where, any time, at a moment's notice. Each time you "solve his problem," you inch closer to the top of that list. And a good assigner rewards the guys who save his butt.
*Observation: Assigners don't like "phone calls". Advice: Under other assigning schemes, a bad experience at a school here and there may only cost you games at those schools. Not so in this world: all bad news flows directly to him. Be a problem solver, not a mess maker.
* Observation: Brown stuff is inevitable; surprises are not. Advice: Your assigner is hard pressed to defend you to an irate coach or AD if he gets blindsided and doesn't know your side of the story. Make sure he hears about it from you first.
* Observation: Seasons change, voices carry, and officials have long memories. Advice: If you cannot say something nice about somebody, say nothing and exit the conversation quickly. This is a competitive environment filled with super-sized egos. You don't always know who is listening, who is buddies with whom, or sometimes even who is related to whom. You don't know how many times the hilarious, but unflattering story you are telling right now will be retold, nor to whom. You don't know when your current assigner will take a job out of state and be replaced by ...

Anyway, most of that is just common sense. Good luck with your first season, and with the many to follow. :)

Good Advice
 

BITS has summed it up nicely. These are common sense things but when all put together they make a nice summary for new officials (and a nice refresher for the rest of us).

I have one assignor for all high school games (about 100 officials in chapter). When first starting out I made sure to have my gear with me at work so I could do games on short notice.

Do you have chapter meetings? Attend all meetings and introduce yourself to others.

Are there scrimmages you can work before the season starts? You won't get paid for these but they are great for being seen and getting to work with other officials in your group.

thanks for the advice. My first chapter meeting is about a week away, it will be the first of the new season.

We had our first scrimmage the other day for our class, and it did not go so well for everybody. It was tough because of 2 reasons....a) it was an open gym at a local high school, and it is just up and down, up and down games, and b) because we had about 5 minute rotations, so it was hard for me to get a good feel of the game.

Again, we will have another scrimmage on thursday, and i hope this one goes better for me as well as everyone else.

BITS

Wow...as a new guy, I'm printing this e-mail out and referring to it every time I get frustrated about getting games.

Thanks -

As a newer official who is starting his 2nd year both as a high school official
and a member of this board, it's replies like BITS' and from other veteran members of this board that make it a great place for us newbies to learn the in and outs of become a better official.
Nice job BITS....I'm adding it to my collection of printouts from last year.