Unshaven
 

Lately I have been working with more and more guys who come to referee unshaven. ( unshaved?)

No, they are not growing a beard or anything, they just don't shave. Personally, I shave before every varsity contest. For a JV game, I may go with 1 days growth, but it's not much. Most people would not know I did not shave.

What's up with this? Is it happening everywhere?

Rumor has it that referees with beards and facial hair, don't get the best games, true for false?

I have no facial hair, haven't for a long time ( I am 57 and shaved everything when I was 35. )

:eek:

I can tell you the vast majority of officials I come in contact have no facial hair. I do see some mustaches, but nothing else. I do see some officials with a beard but that is rare. Basically that standard is not as strict at the HS level, but rather strict at the college level. It was suggested to me to cut my beard in order to work for certain people, I have done that and was never hurt by that issue. Still have a clean mustache but I can do that. ;)

Peace

Funny you started this thread as I literally just came back from the men's room at my office after doing a quick trimmer shave (don't use razors- sensitive skin) for my game tonight.

There are a few officials I've worked with who show up unshaved. And I would say in general they do not get very good games. Not necessarily because of the facial hair but IMO b/c the lack of attention to detail and in some respects, professionalism, shows up in other areas as well.

I shave every day I work a game. Basketball, football, baseball -- it doesn't matter. This time of the year, I usually don't shave on Wednesdays and Sundays -- my two days off during the week.

What about the gals? :p

I have shaved driving to a game using drivers side visor vanity mirror...this is harder than texting:o

I cannot shave daily. When I was in the military I had a shaving waiver. If I shave more frequently than every 4 days my skin pays the price. Part of my 40% disability from the VA includes pseudofolliculitis.

The area of my face where I can grow a goatee is a lot more sensitive than the rest of my face. So on occasion if I have a heavy schedule I will have a goatee for a high school game. Other times if it is a low visibility game I will have a 5 o'clock shadow. My college schedule is not heavy enough (13 games this season is my career high) yet for it to be a problem at that level but I always come clean shaven for a college game or will shave in the locker room prior to the game.

So don't make assumptions about everybody who doesn't shave. In fact I'm working a regional semi-final tonight with a guy who has always kept a full, short beard since I've known him and he has worked multiple State Final Four games.

Yep, an accepted double standard in the basketball officiating world. I had a JuCo supervisor who mentioned this every year. Never found out how this originated.

Sorry, I'm talking about those people who don't, not those who can't. I understand that not everyone can shave daily.

My take
 

There have been lots of studies done about facial hair vs. non-facial hair as it relates to trust worthiness. These studies have shown: those with no facial hair, have more trust from strangers than those with hair.

As a result, I shave before every varsity contest. I give coaches enough reason to not trust me with my calls, I don't want to add not shaving too :rolleyes:

Just like in the military.....
 

+1 It's frowned upon here.

I have other things to worry about, so this is one I can easily check off!

When in Rome!

Mustaches are allowed but not other facial hair?

For African Americans, yes

I was clean shaven for most of my games. In fact I had my (ex)girlfriend buy me an electric razor for Christmas one year so I could shave more often. Hated shaving with a razor every other day.

I could use a few accessories and things around the house, do you think you could have your ex-girlfriend buy them for me as well if I give you the list?:D

Haha yeah give me the list. I'll let you know how that goes for me.:D

I have worked girl's varsity games for about 12 years and during that time I have always had a full beard. No one has ever said anything about my beard. I would stop officiating before I shave my beard. Being clean shaven certainly does not make you a better official.

I shave every day that I have a game, no matter which sport or level it is.

Grizzly Adams ...
 

I pack an electric razor in my bag and shave before every single game. I hate the feeling of working a game with a seven o'clock shadow.

I believe that the original poster was not only asking about facial hair (beard, mustache, etc.) or whether, or not, the official shaved that day (five o'clock shadow), I believe that he was also asking about the modern style, as worn by sport's, Hollywood's, and music's, most famous: the straggly unshaven almost beard "look". My son wears this look, going unshaven for a few days, not because he's lazy, but because he's going for that "look". I hate it when I give him a kiss goodbye on his cheek, it's not a good feeling. I don't know how his wife stands it?

Here's the "look" as worn by Justin Timberlake:

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.46276...51320&pid=15.1

Not everyone has this issue. If I shave the day before I will be fine the next day.

Peace

Nice reference on "The Look" BillyMac. I keep my facial hair trimmed just shorter than this. Early on I had some cristism, but I haven't had anyone seriously complain in years now. I don't have any concerns with facial hair until it gets mountainous, or it is not neatly trimmed.

Although I've had a goatee for the past 9 years, I make sure I shave/groom the day of a game, whether I'm a player, scorekeeper, statistician, or -- as I am now -- an official.

Around Christmas time this year I went with a handlebar stache and feel it has really helped my game. Some of our local assigners have actually complimented the look. Say I look like a young Rollie Fingers. I am way to young to actually kknow who that is. I have seen Justin Timberlake work a few lower level games. He calls way to many 3 seconds for my liking. :(

I always shave on game days.I got rid of a regular partner a few years ago because he started showing up unshaven at games on a regular basis. It was one issue with a guy who also arrived late and poorly dressed.

The NCHSAA does not allow facial hair below the lip line.

No, it doesn't. Neither does wearing the proper uniform, or arriving wearing slacks and a collared shirt. Those things don't make you better, but they can get you better games. They can project an image that gets you better games. And they do manifest a certain professionalism that can only help.

Just like people that want to realistically get hired at a job interview, go in a suit or some sort of tie or outfit. And those that cannot understand why their resume' or background often will not get you a job sight unseen. And yes, some people will not hire you if you have too much facial hair in other walks of life. They just will not openly tell you that to your face.

Peace

+1

I too shave before every game. We do have an official in our association who had a beard and a mustache. They told him if he wanted varsity games he needed to shave. He shaved the beard but kept the mustache as he really likes it and has never ever shaved in something like 30 years. He said he would like to be a varsity official but that is to heavy a price to pay. He is an excellent official and looks the part (aside form the hair "problem"). He is in excellent shape, has great mechanics, is a corrections officer so has a good build. He really looks like an official. It is too bad they won't bend on this.

This is what about 5 of our officials look like, but it's not like that every game, it's shave one day, don't shave for 5 or 6 and shave again....Personally, when I was on vacation, I didn't shave for 10 days..unless you are growing a bread, shave. 10 days worth of growth drove me nuts, and I did have a bread in the 80's.

BTW, the lady officials are always clean shaven, at least the facial hair...

We have 52 officials in our board. I believe 1 had a beard, he has had 3 varsity assignments this year, he is a 16th year official. We had one other ( retired 3 years ago ) and his assignments we good, but that is rare.

Dude, you were Adkins before Adkins was cool. Way to go! No way I could go 30 years without bread.

You're confused, Beard was the soft rock group in the 70's

Was it a baguette or a biscuit?

EDIT: I guess a few of you beat me to it. :D

I go clean-shaven...even if it means I sometimes get mistaken for a player instead of an official (and it's happened before). :o

Is that written somewhere?

TMI

lol :D

Facial hair is a cultural thing and it comes and goes. When the current over 40 crowd gets out of leadership and the current under 40 crowd gets into leadership, neatly groomed facial hair will be of no issue whatsoever. Until then, there will continue to be old codgers who think facial hair is of the devil.

Ungroomed facial hair, on the other hand, isn't acceptable.

I've worn a Van Dyke style beard for 13 years now and as far as I can tell it's had no effect on my assignments.

Shaving sucks, so I only do it on game days.

I can think of a couple of established guys that have goatees and have worn them forever.

Outside of them, everyone I've ever worked with at the h.s. level is clean shaven.

The timing of this thread is interesting. As some of you may have noted, I have a big game Saturday. As it so happens, for the first time in my life, I am sporting facial hair... a neatly trimmed goatee.

I had a brief discussion with one of my partners early in the season who has been to the state finals and he mentioned that they generally don't select officials with facial hair...it's not explicit or spoken, but that's just the way it is. They also avoid anybody carrying more than 15 pounds of extra weight as well. Again, just the way it is. At that time I said "if I get to that point, I'll shave it" and I didn't think much about it again until this week.

As it so happens, I have received my best schedule ever this year, despite the new facial hair. I was conflicted about it because I'm not sure if the powers that selected me know if I had a goatee. As a result, I've decided I don't want to make it an issue, so I am going to shave it off before I leave the house tomorrow morning.

Reading the comments in this thread up to now have more or less affirmed my decision.

And here's a funny side note...our local newspaper posts the mugshots on their website for anybody who has been arrested on a daily basis. I live in a county of about 500,000 people and this IS Florida so the list is pretty long some days. As an experiment, I looked at every mugshot over the past 7 days and counted and calculated how many were clean shaven and how many had beards or moustches. 73% of the males arrested had some form of facial hair. I don't know if that proves anything, but I find it interesting that 3/4 of (alleged) criminals have facial hair.

So, you're getting play off games and the best games in your association? State Play offs?

If so, then, you are correct, facial hair has no effect on your schedule.

And BTW, when this under 40 group is in charge, they too will grow up and realize that quality officials for the most part do not have facial. JMO.

Image isn't everything, but it is something.

So this means the people that selected you have never seen you? So what is the criteria for your selection?

The tournament is so large and there are so many venues, the state relies on "State approved Evaluators" to grade performance and pass it up the chain. Those evaluations and feedback from the games (no controversies or management issues) plus other criteria (attend camps and field clinics) are used by the state office for final picks. I doubt any evaluators at my games mentioned my goatee.

You're assuming I'm good enough to get these games in the first place. I get the games I want in the quantity I want in basketball. In soccer, I work the gambit from the not-so-good games in the area I live in to the good games over an hours drive away and I do get playoff assignments. So yes, as far as I can tell, it's had no effect on my schedule.

Please. It has nothing to do with growing up. It's culture. That culture is changing. A significant minority of under 40 professionals wear facial hair. Somehow we still manage to be taken seriously, except, oddly enough, by the internet referee corps.

You think quality officials are quality officials because they don't have facial hair? If they all grew ZZ Top beards over night they'd still be quality officials.

If a D1 assignor decided he was only going to assign referees with facial hair, you'd all be falling over one-another to grow a beard.


I agree. However, neatly groomed facial hair is no more detracting from your image than neatly groomed hair.

BTW, I don't think we should be judged by our facial hair, provided, it's neat and groomed.

I also do not think we should be judged by our weight, again, provided we can keep up with the game. It should be about our calls and our mechanics.

And the reality is I've never seen a top D1 official with facial hair (I'm sure there are some, I just can't think of one) or glasses.

When I work college football, I'm expected to squint rather than wear sunglasses -- in baseball, I wear sunglasses everywhere.

Some of these things hold on when they probably should've died years ago.

So doesn't this prove it's not an issue?

We have to look the part. However, it's only referees who think a person with facial hair can't possible be good. No one else cares so long as it's neatly groomed. On the other hand, everyone is going to notice a referee being overweight.

Can you imagine a fan saying, "If you'd just have shaved off your beard you wouldn't have missed that call."? I can't. On the other hand, "Lose some weight so you can actually get a call right." is well within the realm of possibilities.

The whole thing reminds me of an experiment that was done either with monkeys or chimps (can't remember which). They were put in a cage with a bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling and a ladder underneath them to access them. Then whenever one would try to climb the ladder to get one they'd be sprayed with water from a fire hose until they stopped. Eventually, they stopped trying to get the bananas.

At this point they started rotating out the original animals and replacing them with new ones. The new one of course would go for the banana but the others would stop him so they wouldn't be sprayed. Eventually, not a single one remained of those who had been sprayed but they group still wouldn't let the newcomer get a banana.

It's the same kind of self-perpetuating thing. For some reason lost to time (and almost certainly having nothing to do with basketball), the college referees didn't have facial hair. So the people who want to be college referees go clean shaven. By the time they get there, they have no desire to have facial hair so they don't grow any causing the next group to think they have to ditch the facial hair to get there.

Maybe...but it's one less thing to worry about. Truthfully, grooming this thing has gotten to be a bother and I doubt I'll miss it anyway.

I feel ya there... I go clean shaven before every game, and last night at my NCAAW-DII game I got asked if I was still in HS! It was a serious question too!

Well you do see mustaches from African-American officials often but that is it. And even that is hit and miss, but your point is point on otherwise.

Peace

Ok as a scorer here are my rules on this topic-

2 day tournament-shave on first day only
3 day tournament-shave on first and last days
4 day tournament-shave on first,third,and last days

Regular game days-shave on every game day.

In all my years I have only had one D1 official tell me I should shave my mustache. Other than that, I shave daily with clippers to prevent other problems. Also, I can't shake a habit I developed for 20 years - my mustache is still within military regulations.

Having said all of that, I will have some additional facial hair this time next week.

Belt It Out Of The Park ...
 

I wear a black belt and I got a great schedule this season. Best in several years. Maybe next year I'll wear two black belts at the same time.

Rollie Fingers type Mustache:)
 

Lets see a picture:)

Several posted if you are a friend.

Peace