Iowa high school basketball games postponed due to referee no-show
 

Iowa high school basketball games postponed due to referee no-show

There are a lot of things on a basketball coach's mind before a big game: what defense to run, what lineup to start, even what shirt to wear.

But there's one question that most coaches never have to ask just before tipoff: "Where are the referees?"

That can't be said for the boys and girls basketball coaches at Iowa schools Lawton-Bronson and IKM/Manning, who had their games canceled on Tuesday night when the scheduled officials never showed up for the game.

"The (IKM) athletic director had a signed contract and he did his job, but the issue was that no one showed up," Lawton-Bronson athletic director and boys coach Vince Johnson told the Des Moines Register. "This is my nightmare as an A.D. You have signed contracts and you confirm it, but it doesn’t come together."

The evening promised to be an exciting one, as all four teams came in undefeated and ranked highly in their division. Instead the teams and the anxious crowd waited 45 minutes, desperately searching for a replacement, before the Lawton-Bronson teams got back on the bus and made the 100-mile return trip.

The games have been rescheduled for Jan. 10, with the site yet to be determined.

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Referee no-show spoils big high school basketball games

Four unbeaten teams remain that way after doubleheader mishap

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Tuesday night in Manning was supposed to feature an exciting doubleheader of unbeaten basketball teams.
All four teams are still undefeated — because the referees who were scheduled to officiate the games never showed up.
The Lawton-Bronson boys’ and girls’ teams got back on the bus and returned home — a nearly 100-mile trip — without getting a chance to play IKM-Manning.
“The (IKM) athletic director had a signed contract and he did his job, but the issue was that no one showed up,” Lawton-Bronson athletic director and boys’ coach Vince Johnson said. “This is my nightmare as an A.D. You have signed contracts and you confirm it, but it doesn’t come together.”
The girls’ game included Class 2-A’s No. 2 IKM-Manning and No. 4 Lawton-Bronson, with both teams boasting 8-0 records. The boys’ game had 2-A’s fourth-ranked IKM-Manning (8-0) against the 1-A Eagles (unranked but 7-0).
“I kind of have a routine where I wait for the national anthem of the girls’ game to get done before getting the guys ready, and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting,” IKM-Manning boys’ coach Keith Wagner said. “It’s definitely disappointing.”
The makeup date for Tuesday’s highly-anticipated Western Valley Conference games is scheduled for Jan. 10, with the site to be determined.
Roger Barr, director of officials with the Iowa High School Athletic Association, said individual schools are responsible for hiring and confirming game officials throughout the regular season.
“It’s very unfortunate that you have that type of thing happen,” Barr said. “But we don’t take over official scheduling until the postseason.”
IKM-Manning attempted to reach out to local officials, hoping someone might have been available, but the games were finally waved off after 45 minutes of waiting.
“The gym was going to be packed, and we had a pretty full house here,” Wagner said.
Fans admitted into Tuesday night’s games will be allowed into the makeup game at no charge.

That sucks

Ouch! 100 mile trip! :eek:

Sounds like some good hoops too.

There has to be a back story here. I doubt that all the officials simply no showed.

Makes that previous thread about contacting each other and the schools very poignant.

All or both of the officials fail to show, seems like the school made a mistake.

Comin out of the stands
 

Wonder if there was any attempt to find or use a replacement crew. Anybody ever get a last minute local call like that or seen something like the AD and V asst coach doing the girls and some vice versa combo for boys?

“It’s very unfortunate that you have that type of thing happen,” Barr said. “But we don’t take over official scheduling until the postseason.”
IKM-Manning attempted to reach out to local officials, hoping someone might have been available, but the games were finally waved off after 45 minutes of waiting.

It says that they did...

Somebody screwed up -- two sets of officials don't simply no show for an event.

I like how they mention signed contracts. And yet if the school decided to cancel for any reason at any time before the game they'd not look to honor their side of the contract.

I continue to beat the drum -- schools see contracts as one-way documents when it comes to officials.

Another reason that having an assigner from an officiating association is much better than having schools contract directly with officials IMO.

Certainly not good.

But there's another side to this story. I highly doubt the officials just didn't want to go.

I doubt we'll hear the other side of the story.

Meanwhile, two officials are are on a private board somewhere discussing whether they're going to get paid after showing up to the school on their contract only to find the game was 100 miles away.

I wonder if they actually tried to call the scheduled officials.

Sorry, see that now. Can you find it in your heart, especially this time of year, to forgive me?:o

Hard to say what happened, but I agree with others that this is one side of the story. If both officials didn't show, there had to be some circumstances... the assignor assigning the game at the visiting school, wrong date, etc.

No assigners involved here, officials are hired directly by the AD. My money is on the date or a car accident.
The officials would have driven together, these are all rural schools.

You mean in this day and age with cell phones and smart phones he does not know what happened?

It sounds like he did not confirm much of anything if this happens and he does not know why the officials never showed up.

Peace

Yeah something is definitely up here. If one guy doesn't show, I'll buy it. But if an entire crew (Or two) doesn't show up, some wires got crossed somewhere.

Like Rut said, if the AD confirmed officials for the game, he has their cell numbers. Why not call them and find out what was going on?

Also chances are in Iowa that schools assign "crews" that normally work together. So something must have happen either with the contract (wrong date) or he gave them something totally erroneous to not show up. I have dealt in that system of assigning and you would be surprised how many mistakes ADs make in their scheduling. I think he told the media what he did to take the pressure off of himself and tried to make it sound like the officials screwed up. If I have guys texting me the game status yesterday, I am sure he could have done the same or a similar confirmation process.

Peace

Most certainly :D

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Twice, in the last three years, Mark, Jr., and I have had contracts to officiate H.S. basketball games where we sent a reminder email that included all pertinent contact information and attached copies of our contracts, with the email CC to our assigner. In the former case the AD never bothered to contact us or our assigner that she had canceled the game, and in the later (just last week) the AD moved the game up two days and never told us or our assigner and then was leaving voice mails on Junior's cell phone wanting to know why we were not at her game (because we were on the court officiating a basketball game).

MTD, Sr.

And, naturally, because you lived up to your end of the contract, you were paid in full for these dates. Right?

Rich:

ROFLMAO!!

MTD, Sr.

I'm telling you -- this is a drum I'm going to bang (including here locally, when I have the opportunity) until things change.

Rich:

You are preaching to the choir here.

MTD, Sr.

I don't blame you. We work through assignees here and there is standard language concerning cancellations. And if the officials are to blame for a cancellation our association has to reimburse the schools for school bus transportation costs.

We had two crews show up for a game last week. Turns out BOTH had contracts. The crew that went home is afraid to ask for pay because they don't want to get scratched by that commissioner / conference.

I see it's been mentioned already these are two rural schools, but does anyone else find it crazy the administration supposedly searched for local officials and found NOBODY able to do the games on short notice?

Are there only a few dozen officials on the board? Every board/association has its problems, but I think lack of #s would be a first.

Guess I'd be getting scratched.

You're assuming that there are well-defined boards/associations in the area. In rural schools around here, the schools would have to call from their contact list of officials -- it could be a small list.

Rich, around here if the schools cancel without letting us know and we show up, we get full game fee and mileage. If they cancelday of - unless it is weather related or some kind of emergency - we get paid our mileage. One of the perks of having an association that the schools have to contract through.

These towns are small enough, they may not have anyone qualified to work that level. And if they do, they're probably already working on a Tuesday night.

And you're right, associations in these areas, if they exist at all, don't look anything like associations in metro areas.

If Iowa is like it is when I used to work baseball, the answer is not really. For one this might be a busy night where officials are already working. Or there is no one close to just pick up and work to anyone's satisfaction.

Iowa is mostly a rural state. It is hard to get to a lot of places if you are not close. Probably at the last minute no, but if they had an issue earlier in the day and knew there was a problem, then probably someone could have covered the game.

Peace

I find this post interesting from the point of how schools are contracted/assigned. When I started my officiating career (Georgia), the local associations were responsible for negotiating and contracting with the schools directly. These days, the GHSA assigns schools to the local association based on specific criteria (ie, geography, # of officials). The local association (there are 25 in the state, 7 in Metro Atlanta) then signs a contract with the school, who sends the season schedule to the association assignor. Our fees are set by the State and are non-negotiatble.

Just curious as to how many of you work in areas that contract directly with a school without any state oversight? Are your fees set by the state or can you negotiate?

Glad we don't have to deal with such nonsense.

Schools paid whatever they wanted.

And schools would pay whatever they felt would get officials to come to their school consistently. Actually I found rural schools pay more than urban or suburban places because they know people had to come further to work their games. And they want to get a cross section of officials coming to their school, not just a handful of the same officials.

Peace

+1

I've been fortunate and never had an issue. Assignor, Arbiter and confirmation emails, have served it's purpose well for me. We don't deal with the schools.

Has to be someone from Iowa here who has the poop on this?

As I've always said, there are plusses and minuses to our system. The plus is that I get to choose which conferences I want to work for and can work as many games or as few games as I want. When I lived in Tennessee, we all got assigned 2-3 dates a week and it was a closed shop -- even if I wanted to work more, I couldn't -- because I had to take what the association gave me.

The big minus is that I have to deal with about a dozen different assignors of varying quality.

The only snafu I have ever had is when the school changed the game time from 2 pm to noon on a Saturday and never informed the assignor. I got a frantic call from the AD as the visiting school was already there. I was an hour away and told him I would leave straightaway. I called my assignor, made several calls to my partner, and ended up working with a JV official for the DH.

I did schedule some of my own games with ADs when I worked a JV schedule, but everything else was via assignors. Here in FL it is totally that way. Sounds to me like someone may not have done due diligence here, and that someone likely was not the crew. (I have had late partners, but those guys have developed those reputations on their own.)

NYC-style...
 

NYC is different, mainly due to the volume of officials in the area. League games in the public schools are done through the Department of Education's athletic arm (PSAL). Non-league games are handled by the schools themselves. Each school finds one official or the home school will find both. The only problem there - to me - is getting paid. In league games the PSAL generates a check for you within 2-3 weeks after the scoresheet is posted on its web site. In non-league games the schools pay you directly, which can take months.

If it's a neutral site game (i.e., a tournament) there are more than enough guys who do assigning on the side to get those done.

I've had a few games where I've worked alone (none in a very long time) but we don't get many games where nobody shows. When that happens it's usually because the school changed the date, didn't tell anyone and didn't update it on the PSAL web site.

We get paid the night of the game. Checks are ready to go. Only a few places mail them and hose usually take about a week.

Catholic and Private schools in our area pay on the spot for the most part. With the publics there's too much red tape to hope they'd be able to get it done any better than they do now. The 2-3 weeks is a vast improvement.

In Westchester County and on Long Island officials get one big check at the end of the season.

We use to get paid at the site...but schools got away from it. Our assignor now pays us...and as of this year, is using RefPay. So far so good.

In my experience in the Chicago area, it was a total crapshoot as to when you got paid, as far as if it was by the school itself or the school district. Some schools, mainly the private schools, had checks made out on game day. Some districts would pay periodically for any games you worked in that district, and for others it would take months.

Our state activities association uses refpay for all playoff games also.

I think this thread has gone off the reservation.

No it hasn't. It's discussing the dynamics of assignment mis-communications, which obviously happened in the OP.

It went off a little bit, by turning into a discussion on how and when officials get paid in different areas.

The AD at least deserves a little credit for not naming the officials as he threw them under the bus. A little. I would love if someone could give us the scoop, though, as I'd bet money there's more to the story here.

That almost goes without saying. Of course something clearly went wrong and something tells me it was not all on the officials even with the information we have.

Peace

Agreed. We'll likely never get it, though, unless the officials are somehow ID'd or come forward to give their side. The IHSAA will likely be interested, and they'll probably investigate, but we may never know; especially if the AD ends up being at fault.

Until someone reasonably explains why 2 crews no-showed I am assuming it was the AD'S fault .

One crew, B/G double headers are typically done by a single crew for these rural games in Iowa. Unless things have drastically changed in the last few years.