Congrats to Camron Rust
 

Camron will be working the Oregon State Tourney this season. Congrats Cam!

Congrats...first one?

And he deserves it. He and I disagree about an awful lot of things, but he's an excellent ref with a great presence on the floor, and lots of players, coaches and partners like him for their games. He's also a terrific computer person who runs a very successful assigning website that's been fantastic for our association.

No, it's not his first one. And I'm certain it won't be his last!

It is good to see the "right" people assigned to work the State Tournaments.

Yes, it is. The only problem our association has is way, way too many "right" people. It's hard to make sure they all get their turn.

Agreed
 

I think we have a lot of really good officials too, but, too few slots up for grabs. A tough cut!

Props to Camron!

Agreed, good Job Cameron! How does Oregon pick their tournament officials?

For Oregon, there's a 2-phased approach to voting for a tourney bid. First there is a vote among all the "Regular" membership of the association. There are 3 types of members: Probationary, Associate, and Regular. Once you achieve Regular status, you are eligible to work varsity. To get to be a Regular member, you either get awarded it by the comissioner if he thinks you're ready, or you automatically get it after 5 years in the association.

All Regular members get to vote for who gets to go to the tourney from the entire list of Regular members. Someone will correct me, but I think you get to vote for up to 25 members in the first vote. Then the top 70 are put on the second ballot. Of those 70, the Regular members then get to vote for at least 10 but no more than 15 (I think). At this point, the varsity coaches all get to vote as well. Here's where it gets fishy. From all those votes, the coaches votes are counted as 1 point each. And a Regular member vote counts as some percentage of one vote. It's based on how many of each types of votes there are (there are always a lot more Regular member votes than coaches votes). It's disturbing that coaches votes count for so much more than the association (peer) votes. Usually only the better school's coaches vote regularly (since they are the ones more likely to even get to the state tourney) and not everyone gets to work at those better schools, so the coaches votes can be very skewed. This makes it difficult for up-and-comers to break into the state tourney.

I had always been against the votes counting differently - I think all the votes should count as 1 point - forget the percentages. It's been a point of contention in the association. The old timers and top echelon want to keep it the way it is because they benefit from it. But the up-and-comers see it as unfair. Who knows if it will ever change.

Camron can explain the process in more detail as to how the percentage for membership votes gets determined. That's it in a nutshell, though.

Tjones goes both ways!
 

Working both girls and boys tourney in the great state of Illinois.

Congrats Tanner.

Thanks Smitty! Coaches should never be allowed to vote for the officials. I wonder how coaches would like it if we (officials) could vote for them?:D

Congrats to Camron!! Knock'em dead.... best of luck and have fun!!

Smitty's description is right in concept....with minor, but insignificant, errors in the numbers.

As for the coaches votes....Basically, if 100 officials vote and 33 coaches vote, the weight is 3x to give the body of coaches the same total weight as the body of officials. In some years, an individual coach's vote has counted 4x the officials vote. This year, it was about 2x.

I've pushed hard over the years to minimize the overly powerful influence of thier vote....and the primary way that it has been accomplished is to get more inolvement from the coaches. We're having record numbers of coaches participate. That reduces the value of a single coach's vote relative to the peer vote. It als minimizes the effect of a rougue coach having a dramatic impact or, even more important, lessens the value of an official "working" coaches for votes. With more coaches voting, there is less room for a on official to successfully practice that sort of behavior.

It should also be mentioned that our own "icallfouls" has also been selected the work Oregon State Tourney....@ the 6A level (Oregeon's top classification).

This is his second trip to that level and his third tourney overall. He is a good friend and someone who has helped me tremendously over the last few years.

Congrats to him.

(I'll let him reveal his name if he chooses since he uses a screen name).

And to answer if it was my first...no. I went in 2008 as an alternate after another official withdrew after having a work conflict come up. (In our assocation, you can't be selected 2 years in a row so no one that went in 2008 was eligible for 2009, and so forth).

Congrats to the tjones/Tanner. Best of luck!

As an assignor, my crew chiefs provide a rating after each game regarding coaches behavior. Both the conferences and school administrations are very interested in that. Most schools do not want coaches that cannot behave.

Congrats on being selected to all.