ridiculous system, IMO (similar to biggravy's question)
 

Going along with biggravy's question in another thread, here's something that our chapter does and I think it sucks. I want your opinion:

Every year a list of officials is sent to every Girls Varsity Head Coach. They can either "prefer", "neutral" or "scratch" you. If you get preferred, you get 10 points, neutral is 0 and scratched is -1. Same thing happens for the boys but only sent every other year.

Then when all the points are tallied up, our assignor picks the top so-many officials (I think 40) and those are the only officials that will get league Varsity games as assigned by him. If you are scratched from a team, you won't get any of their games. If team A and team B prefer some of the same officials, any two of those officials will most likely get those games. If you are neutral with a school, you might get one of their games in a season.

I feel this gives coaches way too much control over us. In a very close game, what happens if you call a foul on a player that any officials, good or bad, would have called in that situation, and yet that call just cost that team the game. You're probably gonna get scratched by that coach. Same thing with Technical fouls. You T up a coach who's been yelling at you all game, you might get scratched because he/she would disagree with you. I think it's a ridiculous system. I know I've been scratched by a local Catholic HS because of a call my partner made, that was wrong, in my area of coverage. Oh yeah, and this was during a SCRIMMAGE! I was outraged to find out he scratched me because my partner made the mistake, not me, and it was during a non-game! One more thing, this was a JV scrimmage too, that he was just there to watch, not coach.

We have scratches in my area as well. It was a negotiating point in the contract. However, each school only gets to scratch two officials. They get no preferences or conditions other than that.

Coaches can scratch up to 5 here I believe. I still thinks it is stupid. Not only that, but I honestly can say that there are some officials who are top-10 that shouldn't be doing games at the varsity level. It's too much of a popularity contest in a sense.

Here's another question. We're not supposed to, but do any of you talk with the coaches before the game? I'll go introduce myself, but usually my name goes in one ear and out the other and they forget it in the first quarter. I'm designing myself some business cards so coaches will remember my name when that list comes around every summer. I will even in a "notes" section on the back of it so they can say "he sucks" or something like that on the back of it. I got some important JV games coming up (important in that I want to do these teams' Varsity games) so I hope I can get these business cards ready by this Thursday. Trick I learned from a veteran official who has done D-I College games.

Sounds like you don't care for the system, but have decided to work within it in order to get what you want.

How else will I get to do Varsity games? I do Varsity games now, but not league games. I'm not in the top-40. Non-league games are usually assigned by the Athletic Director and/or coaches of the home team, or some school will have a veteran official who will get the officials and assign the games with the approval of the home team's coach.

It would take a great deal of work, but you could strive to change the current system.

Get a bunch of officials together, form an association, arrange to meet with the power that be from the local schools, and pitch your idea to them. Tell them that your group will provide all of the training and handle assigning officials for them. See what happens.

It actually has been tried in recent years. Petitions, meetings, the whole nine yards. We just gotta face it that coaches don't want to risk losing this power to disallow an official to officiate any of their games.

But, maybe once I get a few more years under my wings and get better known in the local officiating community, I might give it a shot myself.

Hence the provision in our current contract with the member schools that they may scratch two officials. You have to give something to get something.

I can't imagine that the ADs like all the time that they spend scheduling officials.

We agree on that. What I'm saying that it's stupid. We should be at the same level, or higher, than coaches. But with the "scratching" provision, that puts them above us which, IMO, is wrong. Goes back to some comments that officials are more afraid to administer technical fouls on coaches, or to enforce other rules they feel would piss off that coach and give them a (wrong) reason to scratch them.

Here's another example. My buddy called a foul or some sort of infraction in a highly competitive boys Varsity game. Our league assignor was in the stands watching and 100% agreed with that call. However, it cost the one team the game and the next year, my buddy was scratched by that team.

If we are going to be scratched, the we should have the ability to know WHO scratched us (as our assignor is not supposed to let us know who scratched us), and that we can appeal that scratch if we feel we were wrongfully scratched for situations such as my buddy's or mine with the situation I mentioned earlier tonight.

We are informed, but there is no appeal.

Lucky you. Are you allowed to contact the coach of the team(s) that scratched you?

I know some officials who do this, as well. Personally, I would prefer that ALL officials would have NFHS/NCAA Business Cards WITH A PICTURE (like most realtors tend to have). I like the idea of a little "Notes" section on the back.

While it is true that a coach MAY give us a low rating (or scratch an official in States where that applies) for making/not making a call, the opposing coach MAY give us a lower rating for NOT making/making said call.

Names are hard to remember for many people. Most coaches can remember a face. First of all, this would put all officials on a level playing field since ALL of us would hand a card to each coach. Secondly, I think it would allow officials to more accurately rate EACH official. Ratings today tend to be by crew since the coach only gets to see a listing of the names of the officials when they go into the system to rate their game officials.

Impossible.

Having said that, remember that you can only control what you can control. In the short term, that means showing up on time, looking the part and calling a good game. For all you know, the coach could give you a good rating for having the guts to make the call. Failing to make the call could lead to a scratch by the opposing coach. And, frankly, if a coach wants to scratch me for making a good call, then I probably don't want to work there anyway.

In the longer term, you can work to change the system. Limiting the number of scratches would force the teams to focus on the bigger picture of an official, and not one call.

The "I'm not moving up to varsity fast enough" complaint has been around since the second day of gym class back in the winter term in Springfield.