I've received first and second round playoff games and I am certain I wasn't requested since I hadn't seen any of the teams involved. Ever. There are occasions where coaches will request certain officials and we were told that those requests would be fulfilled if at all possible. I know that several districts outside of our season coverage zone have requested our association work their playoff games. But not all coaches request specific officials.

Whew, much better since I expect the bulk of my time to be in your area and association!

It's an outstanding association. I should also mention getting an assignment doesn't guarantee anything - either coach can scratch officials at their discretion. So if, for any reason, they don't want me in their game they can scratch me.

Same in Iowa. Drive yourself but nats crazy trying to figure it out or worrying about it. Working tonight and tomorrow night, and if i dont get an email in the next 30 minutes my season is done. That is for the boys union....(yeah, i know, why 2? can't answer that.) Girls union gives you all the games up front so you know where you stand. Boys, you wait on Monday's til 4:00 each week to see if you are working more. Hoping for a Sub State final...
cross your fingers for me.

As Indianaref says, at least we have a little control over our rating now. Now that assignments are out for both girls and boys, I don't think it had much of an impact on most officials. Most of us scored equally on our portion and the coach's vote is still what makes the difference.

As far conversation, once the first assignments are made, we can pretty much pick the field for the rest of the tournament. An official in the central part of the state puts together a spread sheet showing all 384 officials selected for the post season tourney. That is of great interest and creates a lot of conversation. It is only distributed to the 384 officials who have been selected but the ratings are a great discussion.

The fact is that when there are 10 spots to be filled, there will be 100 officials that think they should be in those 10 spots. The 10 in those spots just might be the wrong 10 but that still leaves room for only 10 others....the other 80 will still think they should be in there but will be wrong.

They'll still complain about not getting it for whatever reason but in the end, most of those that complain are just not as good as the ones who get the assignments. They might be "good enough" for many of the games they do, but, they'll remain oblivious to why they didn't get in and will blame it on politics or whatever and never look in the mirror to see what it is that they could do to improve their chances. The first step to getting in is figuring out where it is that you fall short and doing something to address it.

At the high school level, I firmly believe this depends on where you live and how playoff assignments are made and who makes them.

Where I am, schools and coaches have zero input into which officials work playoff games - of any kind. There is a small amount of input at the university level, I believe, but ultimately the decisions are made by assignors with input from observers and evaluators.

We know if we will be asked to go to the State Tournament at the start of the season.

How, you ask?

We get X amount of assingments, from our association, for the State Tournament.

Each official is rated(from the previous year)...1 to 105(Master List)...or amount of officials in our association.

We ask the highest rated official if they want to go to the tourney, on down untill we fill the spots.

Some turn down the assignments for various reasons...such as letting the next guy go because that person may not have gone before and really would like to go. (We had 4 officials "pass" this year with 1 of those officials being injured...All 4 officials had already been to at least one State Tournament)

The first round of State...which actually use to be Regionals...is selected from a list sent in to our State Commisioner. But, our association goes by our "Master List" to determine who goes to the "big" tourney...with our State's Commisioner's blessing, of course.

Edit: Our association's board uses our "Master List" and a "Coaches List" to determine who gets Playoff assignments. (Districts/Regionals)
Again...the "Master List" is used to assign the State Tournament.

In my area coaches don't vote and we do not have a master list. Crew Chiefs recommend up to 10 officials (10 crews) for playoffs - I did NOT recommend 10 officials. The first week, playoffs are assigned from that list of officials. We call that regionals (used to be called zone). The next week (this week), is our state tournament. We play a final four in four classes. Our state tournament rotates between Las Vegas and Reno. Due to budget, our three main associations (that is all we have in the state for the most part) send a certain amount of officials to state. When it is local (it is in Las Vegas this year), many more officials get games.

Our Commissioner leads a very small group of individuals that discuss state assignments. It is a subjective process.

It seems to me like it would be a compromise to allow coaches to have a vote in playoff officials. I think every system has some sort of compromise, but allowing the coaches to vote would seemingly cause some officials to act differently during the season...some officials.

Here in Illinois you commit that your available and hope for the best. I received a good regional assignment in 4A and then realized I would probably miss my son's games until I found out they have the 6pm game at my regional and I'm doing the next game at 7:30......on my birthday.

I'm as happy as a clam.

That's pretty much how it is in Missouri.

For the record, I don't even make myself available for district or state playoff games in basketball, so I have no ax to grind. The district officials here are drafted by the schools in each district, then the state body picks officials for the sectional, quarterfinal, and state championship rounds.

Baseball is a different story.

Well you could call down in the office and I am sure that game could be switched for you to work another game if you were still working. Then again that is the dilemma that parents have at this time of year. You are not alone and that does suck BTW. I would probably be long gone before that is a concern, but I certainly understand that issue.

Peace

No, no, it's all good! I get to see him play, eat a little popcorn and then do the later game. Couldn't be better! My first game on the 25th is a play in game, son's game is following night.

I just looked at the officials for our post-season. There are 35 new officials on the girls side and 21 new officials on the boys side. 46/768 nearly 6% new officials.