Fun day
 

Did a few feeder games yesterday and brought a friend of mine's son who 'shadowed' myself and another official. He just turned seventeen and wants to start officiating. He already does baseball so has a good jump on how to comport himself. His uncle was a top NFL official so he has good lineage. I look back and think if I could have started that young..........sigh

Hopefully when I hang 'em up I can watch him out on the court doing a big game somewhere.

My thoughts exactly. Unfortunately, I was too busy coaching my kids - which is also good!

Wish my son's would take it up in any of the sports they played. Just don't seem interested. Oh well...... :(

My son started officiating kids rec when he was in 7th grade. He stayed with it through HS. Right after that, he joined the local assn. and worked for two years doing mostly JV. He was great and had a real opportunity to become a top official. However, he stopped because he just didn't have the time. He took a really demanding job (sales management with the nation's largest cable provider - who shall remain nameless), and a while later got married and has his own son now.

Hey, maybe someday I'll see one of my grandsons out on the court T'ing up some coach! Cool! ;)

Father Son Team
 

I had fun this past week with my 22 year old son. We reffed 10 Jr high games in a Christmas tournament over 5 days. Many comments were made from folks that they do not see much of that anymore, father son teams. He plans to continue on. I also learned a few things from him and I believe he is better than me in a few things but I still no more rules than he and have the gray hairs of experience. Several other refs took some extra time out to come over and encourage him to carry on. This was appreciated. I looked at this opportunity as a blessing.:)

My dad and I started out together this year. I've reffed a few games with him, and I enjoyed and I think he did too. He doesn't have as much time to ref right now because he's working on his doctorate, but hopefully over the summer and next winter we'll get more chances to work together.

When my son and I worked rec games together, we would have contests to see who could call the most Ts. Usually, it wound up in a tie.

And don't even bother to ask if we ever had an overtime. ;)

I'm sure this is said in all chapters, associations, etc., but I hear a lot of the elder officials telling me "I wish I started when I was your age" and telling me I got potential to make it to the college level. I hope to be a D-I official some day and maybe do some Pro-am games when I'm in my late 30s or 40s. I'm glad I started when I did:)

Golden Rule: N-O-T!! (No OverTime!!)

Similar here. Started when I was 18, and I'm currently in my fourth year of officiating. Can't imagine myself NOT doing this for quite some time. :D

I enjoy it so much. I tell people I make like $50+ for a JV game that can last anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour and 15 on a normal day, and they get so jealous. But then they say "well, I couldn't handle the yelling from coaches and fans, I don't know how you or anyone could". Honestly, I didn't know how i would be able to handle it when i started, but I'm sure we all can say that you just get used to it. They don't know the rules like we do :)