Officials' Accomodations

[fiasco]

Originally Posted by jeschmit

The worst I've experienced is having to dress in the maintenance worker's break room (no shower), and in order to get to the gym we have to walk through the machine shop. I remember having to sidestep two tractors and step over a few weedeaters in order to get to the gym. This was a women's college game too!

That's pretty bad. Worst I've ever had is dressing in the weight room at a junior high for a freshman game. No shower, and the room stunk like BO. No sink, no nothing. Not fun at all.

[JRutledge]

I was at a school this past weekend where it was a (big) classroom but no where to shower was available at the school. That is about as bad as it gets around here.

Most places have a shower in the suburbs, but when you go to the city that changes drastically in many cases. Sometimes the locker rooms are very small, but not most give us a good room. The vast majority of the time we are put in a coach's locker room and that usually has enough room for at least 3 officials to be for the night.

Peace

[zm1283]

Several of the bigger schools around here have dedicated officials' locker rooms with your own lockers, shower, bathroom, etc. Some of them are really spacious and nice. I was in one on Friday, and they leave water and snacks in the room for you so you don't have to ask for anything.

The rest of the time it is a mixed bag. Usually it's a coaches office that isn't being used, so we have a bathroom and shower. At some of the smaller schools, we see nurse's offices, classrooms, etc. A couple weeks ago my partner and I were in what amounted to a closet next to the visitor's locker room. This thing was about 8x8 and had about six chairs in it along with a table and some boxes. We could barely turn around. We used the visitor's locker room bathroom when they weren't in there. It was either that or venture out into the lobby of the school, which we weren't about to do.

The worst one I have seen around here is a weight room that is upstairs from the stage on the end of a gym. It is NASTY. Hasn't been cleaned in years, and you have to climb some very narrow, steep stairs to get to it.

Another interesting one was a few weeks ago at a girls varsity tournament. My partner and I were dressing in a classroom that had a bathroom attached, so it was a good setup. The problem was that it is right next to the concession stand, so they store concession supplies in the room. We had about four people just casually stroll into our dressing room at different times before we went to the court. Included were two teenagers that walked in just as we opened the door to leave. Thankfully we were dressed. We were actually being evaluated that night, so I mentioned it to the evaluator, who said something to the AD. They ended up putting a sign up on the door. (The state gives them one that is supposed to be up anyway)

[SCalScoreKeeper]

We don't have a dedicated officials room per se.A lot of our people come dressed and ready to work but if anyone doesn't they get dressed in the AD's office.Our people like us because we provide a good table crew,pay in cash,and provide four officials chairs (two for the team on court and two for the varsity officials waiting to go on) behind our scorers table.

[BktBallRef]

Originally Posted by SCalScoreKeeper

We don't have a dedicated officials room per se.A lot of our people come dressed and ready to work but if anyone doesn't they get dressed in the AD's office.

You don't realize it but I bet many come dressed because you don't offer a better facility for them.

Our people like us because we provide a good table crew,pay in cash,and provide four officials chairs (two for the team on court and two for the varsity officials waiting to go on) behind our scorers table.

You may think so but I would bet that if you offered them an opportunity for a private dressing room with a place to shower after the game, they would jump at it.

[jTheUmp]

Originally Posted by SCalScoreKeeper

We don't have a dedicated officials room per se.A lot of our people come dressed and ready to work but if anyone doesn't they get dressed in the AD's office.Our people like us because we provide a good table crew,pay in cash,and provide four officials chairs (two for the team on court and two for the varsity officials waiting to go on) behind our scorers table.

+1 to BkBallRef's comments.

The officials are NEVER going to say anything to your locker room situation. ("Never make negative comments about a team's facilities, those comments _will_ come back to haunt you." was one of the lessons drilled into me by the vets in my association).

Pay on the spot (cash or check) is nice.

Good table crew is helpful and appreciated.

Official's chairs near the court... I'm not going to use them.

[Rich]

One place who has an official as an athletic director has water cups for us with our names on them. He also takes our jackets back to the locker room (he opens and relocks the room and just puts the jackets in there where we can find them).

I worked at a place a few years ago where people would run small bottles of water out to us on quarter breaks and on 60-second timeouts.

Tonight we'll be in a nurses room. Cramped, but clean, private, and with a shower. This school is where I dislocated my patella 4 seasons ago. Good times.

[grunewar]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

He also takes our jackets back to the locker room (he opens and relocks the room and just puts the jackets in there where we can find them).

Lucky you!

Nothing worse than not being able to locate game management at half or at the end of the game to open up the locker room/office! Ya just have to stand there or going looking.......

[Adam]

Originally Posted by SCalScoreKeeper

We don't have a dedicated officials room per se.A lot of our people come dressed and ready to work but if anyone doesn't they get dressed in the AD's office.Our people like us because we provide a good table crew,pay in cash,and provide four officials chairs (two for the team on court and two for the varsity officials waiting to go on) behind our scorers table.

I don't know if I'm in the minority here or not, but I would trade all of those for an adequate dressing room. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a decent table crew, that's the standard here (maybe I'm spoiled), and walking out with cash is nice. But if I was offered a choice, I'd take the facility.

For the most part around here, we get a mid-sized coach's office; sometimes we have the coaches' office suite to ourselves. Adequate showers are hit or miss, so I've just gotten used to showering at home except for the few schools I know have showers.

A few schools put us in the trainer's room. One designed what appears to be a dedicated officials' locker room, but it's small and cramped with three officials. Shift change is a nightmare.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by fiasco

That's pretty bad. Worst I've ever had is dressing in the weight room at a junior high for a freshman game. No shower, and the room stunk like BO. No sink, no nothing. Not fun at all.

I'll take that over a closet-sized coach's office any day.

[Camron Rust]

Worst one i've been to (ignoring those that put you in a classroom or such)....

Entry door is a 2/3 size door under a stairwell into what is really a closet....you go under the stairs through the closet into the back side of a shower and through the shower into the "room". It barely has room for anything. Last time I was in there, it had several wheelchairs piled in the room. It has a small couch and a few feet for standing room....just enough to change in. It has another normal sized door that must go into the nearby locker room but it is blocked off.

[grunewar]

Overall, no complaints from me.

As others have stated before, most times we get a coaches office - in a few cases an entire locker room (which is nice).

My worst one though was a small, private school - a decent sized utility/gym equipment closet, right off the gym floor. We could workout on the few free weights there during our pre-game.

[BillyMac]

Isn't it great when they use the shower to store physical education equipment?

[grunewar]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Isn't it great when they use the shower to store physical education equipment?

When I first started we had many a MS shower stacked with cleaning supplies, TP, paper, books, office supplies, etc.

[Maineac]

Broom closet, complete with brooms. But not many, it wasn't big enough.