Your thoughts - When to say NO
 

Here is the situations that have occurred locally. I am the interpreter for my association. I get phone calls regularly from refs and coaches. This is the latest (2 seperate cases)

Case ONE: School has decided to schedule refs instead of using assignor on NON-League games: The AD has a wife that is a ref. He has scheduled her with 2 other refs (one is a coach at the district, 5th grade; the other's wife is a principal in the district) The games that they have gotten are Girl's Varsity games, I have received emails and calls from coaches and refs about this. I too think it is a bad practice, how should I handle this?

Case 2: A ref in my association was scheduled to a girls varsity game from our assignor. IT was a game that featured 2 of the best teams in that class. The away team is the district he lives in, kids go to the school, play sports for, and he and his wife are actively involved in the district. Coach calls and was furios about him being on that game and also about the job he did. I have not seen the game film yet. Any suggestions> Side note the official that did this was my best man at my wedding and I have had previous discussions about this with him in previous years.

Case #1 - Not a good situation but seems to be out of your hands.

Case #2 - Should have not been assigned the game or should have given the game back.

Just my personal opinion, but I don't think either of these situations falls under your duties as interpreter. These are issues that need to be addressed by your association's executive committee for Case 1 or ethics committee (if you have one) for Case 2.

These are assignor issues, these things would not happen in my area the way they are. Just shows how different things are across the country.

Peace

Board
 

I am part of the the executive board, I ref with both of these officials on Monday. Do I bring it up as a suggestion because I have good relationships with these officials?

Sure, but bring it up personally, not as Executive Board member, and make it about you ("I would never take a game with a conflict of interest because even if nothing went wrong in that game it would affect other's perceptions of me and could harm my future career.")

Then, make "conflicts of interest" a training topic and / or add it to your by-laws, etc.

Agree with Scrapper. Does your association have a conflict of interest policy? If not, sounds like maybe they need one.....

If a school is hiring directly, there isn't much you can do aside from encouraging officials to not work games where they have such a conflict.

One one of the 3 was OK in my opinion...the one who's wife was a principle at a different school in the district. That is far enough away to be no conflict.

What to do...remember YOUR members about what your organization considers to be a conflict of interest. Still, I'm not sure you have jurisdiction of games they've taken from other sources aside from the image it may cast upon your organization...but that may be enough to have a policy that you could enforce.

Confused. Do his kids go to the specific school or another school in the district? Same Q about the wife...involved with that specific school or another school in the district?

If it is another school in the same district, I don't think there is any issue with it, in general. If it is the same school...big problem....shouldn't happen unless it is a very rural area where you only have so many officials available.

I work games for EVERY school in the same district as where my kids go to school and play sports (golf) but never for my kid's school. I have never considered that to be an issue. My assignor knows where my kid goes to school and has no issue assigning me to the rest.

showing my newness again, but what is an interpreter?

/thanks.

If you are in an association it's the guy/gal you should talk to when you have questions about rules, case plays, or mechanics. It's great to come here but sometimes there may be a little tweak in what is done locally.

Stir: I am the rules Interpreter for my chapter: In Pennsylvania we have a state interpreter, district interpreters and chapter interpreters. I am responsible for conducting the rule and mechanic meetings that we have. We have 16 meetings throughout the year, All officials must attend 6 of them. We also have another one that I conduct that is mandated for all refs and all head varsity coaches. IF a ref misses they cannot ref the following year, if a coach misses, the school is fined 200 dollars.

Someone who can translate the rules into baby talk so that coaches can understand them. :D