Taking the Plunge

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by 26 Year Gap

That is completely nuts. Having off-season work allows officials to focus on points of their games that need strengthening. I couldn't imagine going from mid-February until mid-November WITHOUT working in between. Glad my IAABO chapter didn't take that view.

I probably should have mentioned this in my earlier post, but there was another reason for this "hostile takeover" attempt. As stated "This policy is to guarantee that IAABO members are fairly offered the opportunity to service AAU and other independent tournaments in their respective regions working for fair and guaranteed fees".

AAU tournament directors were employing very small groups of officials to work their tournament games, and these small group of officials were working as many games, and making as much money, as they could physically, and mentally, bear. If you were an official who wanted to work AAU games in the offseason, you had to know the "secret handshake". AAU tournament directors would use a very small group of officials as "assigners" for various tournaments, and these "assigners" would only assign games to their close friends.

Because so many officials, eager to make some offseason money, or eager to get in some offseason experience, were getting "shut out" from working these games, the IAABO state board, and the local boards, wanted to try to "spread the wealth", thus allowing all officials who wanted to work such tournaments the opportunity to do so. The hope of the state board was that instead of a very small group of officials working a dozen games each over a weekend tournament, that a larger group of officials would work two, or three, games each over the weekend.

AAU tournament directors, wanting to keep their fees as low as possible, and small groups of officials, wanting to protect their "cash cows", got together, throwing out terms like "independent contractor", and "restraint of trade", and that stopped the state board "dead in its tracks".