Marginally interesting article

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Rich

Thankfully, officials where I live are free to work all boys games, all girls games, or a mixture. Nobody is forced to work any games they may not want to work.

Personally, I worked about 70% boys this season and will be working 100% this year. After working nothing but boys games for 3 weeks, I really struggled with the (slower) pace and the differing expectations of the girls game.

I'd be thrilled if we were licensed separately in the two genders - as is done with baseball and softball. At least when someone calls me to cover a softball game, I can quickly say "I am not licensed in softball" and it ends the conversation. When someone asks me to work a girls game, I have to be more careful in how I respond. "I don't work girls games" is not taken well by some people.

As you know there are no restrictions here either, but people just choose not to work both or certain assigners do not consider an official good enough to work boys basketball or certain conference level basketball. And right now the 1A/2A girls state finals are going on this weekend, well people like me would never want to work that stuff and would have to choose on some level as the boys 3A/4A season just ended last night. We just have a choice and I feel blessed that I can choose what to work when I leave my house.

Peace