Louisiana Officials Possible Strike?

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

Like I said, I would've put my bags away for the year before I would've stepped in and worked other association's games.

So all this is hypothetical for me, but I have worked in an association system before and I can't imagine such a scenario happening and not have the chance to vote on whether the association wants to join the others. You mean *nobody* in your group asked that question? Do you guys not meet?

Part of the agreement that we have with all of our neighboring associations is that we will never send officials into each other's area without the approval of that area's association. The last thing that any of us want is to get into official vs. official warfare. Our local constitution also is specifically written so that the members make ALL major decisions by majority vote. And with e-mail, etc., you can have a vote immediately on just about anything.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Part of the agreement that we have with all of our neighboring associations is that we will never send officials into each other's area without the approval of that area's association.

Once upon a time, in the Land of Steady Habits, Connecticut was a 98% IAABO state. The only exception was a very small non-IAABO association that was a vestige of what used to be an association that only worked girls games, before local Connecticut IAABO boards started working girls games about thirty years ago.

Over the years, more and more schools wanted their girls games worked by the same board (IAABO) that worked their boys games, in most cases to make the paperwork more convenient for athletic directors. As IAABO, now both boys and girls, got larger, the "girls" association got smaller. Near the end, the "girls" association was only covering less than a dozen schools.

That's when it started getting nasty. If a coach, or athletic director, that used the "girls" officials didn't like the way that their girls games were being called, they switched over to IAABO. If a coach, or athletic director, that used the IAABO officials didn't like the way that their girls games were being called, they switched over to the "girls" association. In a few cases, when athletic directors, or coaches, really got pissed, they used the "girls" officials to work their boys games. This went on for several years.

Eventually, the "girls" association only had about two dozen officials, and was only covering about a half dozen schools, getting, for the most part, only girls games. Finally about four years ago, the "girls" association offered to merge with our local IAABO board. Some of our guys didn't want to merge, but wanted to exterminate the other association. However, reasonable minds took over, and now we're all just one big happy family, and we're going to live happily ever after. Don't you just love monopolies?