Officiating in the ABA
 

I was recently emailed by Tom Chichester requesting that I sign up with the ABA to officiate their games. All I had to send him was my information and a $45 "assignment fee" to be added to the roster. I did some research on this league and most of the posts on various message boards have this league as a disaster filled with cancellations of games and merely there to add and drop teams to keep league ownership making money without any stability or organization.

Have any of you had or know of anyone that has worked this league? I was emailed their "rule book" and they have some special "bonus periods" where you add points to field goals, and other circus like changes.

I am at the post office debating sending my self addressed postage paid box to get my officials shirt in the mail.:cool:

Send me a PM. I know someone who has called games in that league.

PM Sent...anyone else?

forwarded on

There is team locally that plays 5 minutes from my office. I am not at all interested in officiating the ABA despite that convenience.

I've heard the same horror stories as you have.

I know a couple close friends that work the ABA here in Northern California. From what I hear they seem to enjoy it.


The only negative aspect is the money and making sure they got paid for the games. They had a system where they would not step on the floor unless they had the money for the game.

But yeah read up on the rules and good luck!

Its getting better though... teams are now being fined for not honoring their schedules, so the officials still get paid.

Cold hard CASH up front is not a bad thing!
The rules are basically NCAA-M with some modifications.

:eek:To me, that a pretty major "only negative aspect".

Heard back from my friend. Here is his reply on doing ABA:

Here are the pluses and minuses of doing ABA games:
Plus
____
1. High level of play
2. Challenges you as an official
3. Forces you to understand new rules
4. Makes the college and high school games seem easy

Minuses
__________
1. Pay sucks and the assignor is pretty bad
2. The players and coaches can be a big pain
3. The travel can be pretty extreme
4. You never know how good your partner is going to be

Same can be said for HS & small college leagues as well...

It's glorified rec league ball, same as the rest of the semi-pro leagues floating around. That's what makes it hard to do.

Notice its my close friends and not me working this "glorified rec ball" (thanks JR) ;)

Where are your local teams located? I grew up in Fairfield.

Virgina is quite a ways from California! :)

but right now i think there is a team in SF, Oakland, and Modesto. Im pretty sure there at least a couple more around here somewhere.