Career's for Officiating
 

I dream (as we all do) about officiating as many D-I games as possible. I am currently a student, have 2 years of officiating under my belt, and have been constantly thinking of career's that would allow time off for officiating. Obviously owning your own business would be great, but for the officials who have a pretty full officiating schedule or anybody: what are your careers or what careers have you observed for other officials?

Thanks!

"...(as we all do)...?"

Speak for yourself, fella.

Doesn't hurt to have a boss who encourages to do it and will work with your schedule.

My profession is electrical engineering.

My career requires me to notice superfluous apostrophes.

How horrible.

+1

Could be worse. Could have to do that AND lose the right to bargain collectively. :eek:

Carry On ...
 

Hey mbyron. No religion, or politics, on the Forum. Wait a second. I'm being told by control room that that only applies to the dinner table, not to the Forum. Never mind.

Why don't you contact some refs in SoCal, since the guys working D1 there have only a year or two of experience. :D

Having a full schedule could mean working 5-6 nights a week of HS and rec ball. The travel requirements, thus your job restrictions, for doing that would be different than having a full schedule of college games. You also have those who do a lot of HS/Rec games and also a modest amount of college games in between.

Which are you trying to get an answer for?

It's not politics yet, as it is still in the vicinity of the OP.

Well right now with being in school I am finished everyday by 1:00 which greatly helps with both my HS schedule and DII. What I am afraid of is losing what I have worked hard for. I would hate to get into a career where I couldn't officiate. I have 2 years left and my question is toward the college officials who work 20+ games or anyone who works a lot of games throughout the week.

I would say get into teaching. I know quite a few teachers, in its various forms, who are collegiate officials.

I'm assuming your D2 schedule is in the Carolina Conference, so your driving requirements are not too extreme.

There is no ideal profession for everyone. I know officials in all walks of life that officiate. Basketball is an easy sport to have a job and work a regular job as the games are in the evening and during a time of year when many jobs have breaks or holidays that will have you available. I guess if you get into retail (e.g. management) of some kind those jobs can be difficult to officiate because you might have to be at the job during store or travel to other stores on a whim. For the most part, just consider that when you take a job if it means that much to you. And then do not take games that will conflict with your job or limit the amount of conflict. Most interviews will have you ask questions as to what they will expect and this can help you determine if what they are paying you is worth giving up officiating. And many games are on Fridays and Saturdays and unless you have to work late on a Friday, not much will conflict with that on a normal day. If you are honest with most assignors they likely will not put you in that situation anyway.

Peace

One thing I will say, I'd be hesitant to pick a career soley to fit around officiating. Make no mistake, I enjoy officiating quite a bit and I understand your goal is to move up but there is no guarantee that you will (injury, etc). A career is something you'll have for decades, and is something you will spend a good part of your life doing. It should be something that you enjoy and that can put food on your table.

For me personally, I'm at the point where I'd rather have a career I enjoy but which limits my officiating.

The choice is ultimately yours, but it's something I encourage you to think about.

work enough games and who needs another career ;)

I guess since you are finishing up school (great accomplishment) you are real young, go after this if it is the dream job that you wish to have. Very few people have their dream job and love what they do for a living. Doing what you absolutely have a passion for means you really never have to "work" another day of your life. If this (officiating) is your passion then I say chase your dream till you can't chase it anymore. Really and truly though there are only a couple of ways to make officiating a true living. You either have to be in the top 5% of officials in America working at least 50 D1 games a year. The killer there, is the only way you get a pay increase is to get more games and even then you are going to flatline and make the same pay. The other option is to try and make it to the NBA. there you get an increase in pay every year of experience you get. You get benefits. If you make the playoffs, you get a big bump in pay in the playoffs, whereas you make less per game in the NCAA tournament than you would if you worked an ACC game. Those are your two options but if you are truly passionate about this profession then go attack it with all you got. Good luck.

I would love to go either way. It is what I think about constantly, besides all of my school work.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. :D

I think it is great that you love to ref. I would advise you to think about the following. If you plan on getting married this could change your priorties. If you plan on having kids, this WILL change your priorities.

In either case, you will need a job to support a family other than officiating. Like previous posters mentioned, there are many qualified refs fighting to get in. It is extremely competititive....and often based on geography and other factors 100% out of your control.

Ok.. now that the disclaimer is out of the way, any job where you can set your own hours would be ideal. There are a lot of teachers who officiate, but this career can become problematic once you start travelling for games with the limited amount of time off you get while school is in session.

There are a lot of people that work games that have a family and they work more than I do and I am single with no children. So marriage and children do not have to do anything to their goals in officiating. I have worked 3 sports and I work less than most that have children and a wife/husband. I know officials that their spouse is every bit of supportive and helpful to their officiating goals.

Bottom line goals in life change and should change. But that does not mean they will drastically change. When you leave college there are a whole bunch of things that could happen that would and could change what someone will do in officiating. He could move to a completely different area that might make moving to the D1 level harder or easier. All I can add to this is when you find a job that is the first thing you will have to decide. The other things are not necessarily things that will happen in his life to change what he wants to do.

Peace

I am (somewhat) envied among my small group of officials for having such a supporting wife. I work about 60 HS/Juco basketball dates, 30 FB dates, and probably 60-80 baseball dates over the course of a calendar year. My wife supports me mainly by knowing that my officiating is simply something that I do and she understands that it's an important part of my life.

I do have a career that has helped (lately) more than hurt. While I have to travel occasionally and I turn games back when I do, when I'm home I work from a home office and essentially choose my own hours. I didn't get such flexibility until I was well into my career, though.

The best careers for officiating seem to be careers where you either own your own business (independent insurance agent seems to be popular) or are judged more by results than hours sitting in a chair (sales).

OP: A college student should know how to use apostrophes better, BTW. See greengrocer's apostrophe here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe

I teach and it allows me to do 3 sports.

You don't think about girls??? My thinking was; Girls, Sports, Girls, School, Girls...
Good Luck no matter what you choose. Just graduate.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. Also, I make it a practice to be very upfront with employers about my commitments to officiating every season. I would do the same during an interview. It will help you out with some employers, but may hurt you with others, but to me, you're better off being honest and upfront about it.

Officiating doesn't pay the bills for most people. At some point, you'll have to worry about paying rent or a mortgage and I know my officiating income wouldn't come close to covering even this expense and doesn't pay anything near what my day job pays.

I'm not sure that an interview is a place, especially in this economy (I know I'm using a cliche here, but there is truth to it) where you give excuses to why you won't be able to work at certain times for a company. It's a matter of give and take. You'll be able to officiate with a job, but maybe not the same number of days a week you can while you're in school. When I thought about changing jobs 7 years ago, I did bring it up -- mainly because I wasn't sold on the idea of moving to a new job *and* because I already had a good job (albeit with some problems at the time).

The best jobs for officials (at the HS level) are ones where work starts early in the day and finishes early in the day. Teaching is a good example. I worked with a prison guard last week. Many white collar jobs, however, have higher expectations for employees and until you prove you're a valued (and hard-to-replace) employee, you'll probably have to be a lot more flexible than your employer.

You need to know as much about a job as possible. Maybe you do not bring up the situation directly with officiating, but I would want to know where I have to go everyday and what kind of travel. Around here the commute is a big thing so you may get a job but have to go an hour in traffic. I have even had jobs ask me did that bother me in the interview process. I think you need to know what a typical work week is like and what kind of responsibilities you have to do. This would be important if you had children and this should be the case if you have other responsibilities or commitments.

At the end of the day these things are personal. Someone just getting out of school is going to be in a completely different situation as someone that has been in a career or had a regular job for years. And certainly will have a different set of bills compared to someone that has a family. There are a lot of things to consider when interviewing and taking a job. Officiating is just one part of that. I think you should want a job where you are happy, not working a job where you are miserable. Officiating or not officiating might play a role in that for some people.

Peace

I've always brought it up in interviews, and mentioned the caveat "if my schedule allows." It normally comes up when discussing personal interests or life experiences.

I treat this as a business so it is on my applications/résumé and it tends to be a huge topic of conversation as the interviewers in my experience brings it up.

Peace

It comes down to your personal choices. The money in officiating isn't that good unless you make it to the top. I've seen a lot of peers put all their eggs in the officiating basket and end up unhappy with no career or quality relationships outside of the game.

Same here. I usually discuss officiating during interviews asking about dealing with stressful situations or resolving conflict.

My Choices
 

With thinking what I want to do with my life, my career choices have always been narrowed down to:

1) Law Enforcement
2) College Professor
3) Pastor

I joined the military at 18 and retired when I was 41. The first and only job I applied for is my current civil service job. The person who hired me was a former HS basketball official. :D

I know multiple officials that are very successful that have been all in all those professions. ;)

Peace

I'm glad to hear that. Thank you.

I personally think that this should be your primary goal - to be the best at whichever one of these you pursue. If you pursue officiating over these, then you will have a lot of personal demons in your 40's and 50's that you
will be fighting on a daily basis.


I say this on a personal note. I missed my sisters wedding to work a DI exhibition ???? What the hell was I thinking. Not that you would make the same mistake, but when you make officiating a priority, then this stupid stuff
occurs.