Pointing Mechanic

[Rich]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

It's not a point of pride for me personally, it's about comfort, familiarity, and belonging to a local board that is flexible in some uniform issues. Maybe it is a point of pride that I belong to a local board that allows some flexibility in it's dress guidelines, my local board realizing that, although a proper uniform is an important part of officiating, it's not necessarily just the clothes that make the official.

....

And finally, there is another reason why I keep referencing my black belted pants, because some Forum members keep making fun of those officials, like me, both Forum members, and non Forum members that they've observed, that wear belted pants, so I always respond: I wear them because I like them, and I can, and if you think that it makes me a lesser official, then you're dead wrong.

I've never, ever seen a guy wear a belt in a serious game in any place I've lived since the early 1990s who was a top flight official. There are a few guys here locally who are politically connected that wear belts, but an independent evaluation of their work on the court would show a difference between what those guys get in the postseason compared with their actual ability. One of those guys stubbornly wears the belted pants and then matches it with an Acme Thunderer rubber-tipped metal pea whistle and always lets everyone know he's "using the pea whistle." No clue what HE'S trying to prove, but he's the kind of guy I hope I'm never paired with.

When someone has the choice of wearing something that 100% of the officials who work at the top levels wear (on TV and elsewhere) and it's actually the standard wear for the sport, I just don't understand why you'd make a different choice.

I started working HS ball in 1987. No idea what I was wearing back then with my Byron collar. I know I've been wearing beltless pants since at least the early 90s, though, and maybe earlier. The only change has been the addition of pleats between then and now. I feel the same way about flat front pants today as I feel about belts -- why would an official buy flat fronts when all the top officials wear pleats and they've become the standard.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich

I've never, ever seen a guy wear a belt in a serious game in any place I've lived since the early 1990s who was a top flight official. When someone has the choice of wearing something that 100% of the officials who work at the top levels wear (on TV and elsewhere) and it's actually the standard wear for the sport, I just don't understand why you'd make a different choice.

Then you have never lived in my little corner of Connecticut. The standard here, and I've served on the training committee for several years so I know that I'm talking about, is that officials have a choice of wearing belted, or beltless pants, and for that matter, pleated, or flat, pants. Of our 325 members, we only have about a dozen NCAA officials, and of those only a handful of Division I officials, and the college guys, universally, wear beltless pleated pants, however, not all of those guys are considered by either their peers, or by the high school coaches, to be our best officials. Of our dozen, or so, officials, who work the "top level" high school games around here, only a few are college officials, and with exception of those college guys, the rest wear both types of pants, in terms of belts, or pleats.

But things are changing. Back when I started 32 years ago, only the college guys wore the beltless pants, and, back then, nobody wore pleated pants. Now most of the "young guns" coming up choose to wear beltless pants, although the pleats haven't followed suit, for some reason.

We're a board that services high schools, and we're, for the most part, high school officials. Most of us really don't care what the NCAA guys wear on television. We watch how they officiate. We watch how they manage a game. We watch their mechanics. But we don't really care what they wear.

That's our local standard. I'm 100% sure that standards vary all over the country, state to state, association to association, NFHS versus IAABO, etc. I don't make fun of other's standards, and I see no reason why others should make fun of ours. We're old fashioned, but we're comfortable in our own skin.

For some reason, Connecticut was one of the last IAABO states to even consider a switch from the gray, and blue, to black, and white, jerseys. My local board was one of the last local boards in the state, IAABO, or otherwise, to make jackets mandatory. Almost all of our games are two person games. There is a reason why Connecticut is called the Land of Steady Habits. I may be a Red Sox fan, but I'm a Connecticut Yankee through and through.

In the immortal words of St. Ambrose, who in 387 A.D., after Saint Augustine questioned why the Church at Milan did not fast on Saturday as did the Church at Rome: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

[Rich]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Then you have never lived in my little corner of Connecticut. The standard here, and I've served on the training committee for several years so I know that I'm talking about, is that officials have a choice of wearing belted, or beltless pants, and for that matter, pleated, or flat, pants. Of our 325 members, we only have about a dozen NCAA officials, and of those only a handful of Division I officials, and those guys, universally, wear beltless pleated pants, however, not all of those guys are considered by either their peers, or by the high school coaches, to be our best officials.

This says more about their peers and the coaches than it does about them, IMO.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich

This says more about their peers and the coaches than it does about them.

For some reason, it's real easy around here to get a Division II, or Division III, women's schedule, and only slightly more difficult to get a men's Division III college schedule. I really have no idea why, I know nothing about the politics of college officiating, assigning etc.

We have college officials on our local high school board who aren't even full varsity high school officials. Some of them have what we call a split schedule, working both varsity, and junior varsity, high school games. That's how good some of them are. Maybe, in your part of the woods, all of the college guys are the top dogs in the high school ranks, but that certainly isn't true around here.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

For some reason, it's real easy around here to get a Division II, or Division III, women's schedule, and only slightly more difficult to get a men's Division III college schedule. I really have no idea why, I know nothing about the politics of college officiating, assigning etc.

We have college officials on our local high school board who aren't even full varsity high school officials. Some of them have what we call a split schedule, working both varsity, and junior varsity, high school games. A few of them only get junior varsity high school games. That's how good they are. Maybe, in your part of the woods, all of the college guys are the top dogs in the high school ranks, but that certainly isn't true around here.

For the record it is rather easy in a lot of places to work women's college for some very obvious reasons. It is easier in other areas to work men's college when an area requires more travel or you need a people with the ability to handle those kinds of games. Not everyone is willing to travel what it takes to work a college game. From what I have heard form those in this part of the country that there are much more politics to work HS games then they ever have to deal with working college. In my area we have so many colleges that it is harder than most areas to even break in and more officials.

Peace

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

For the record it is rather easy in a lot of places to work women's college for some very obvious reasons. It is easier in other areas to work men's college when an area requires more travel or you need a people with the ability to handle those kinds of games. Not everyone is willing to travel what it takes to work a college game.

It's probably a lot different now, but twenty years ago I was approached, and encouraged, to work low level college games. I declined because the travel involved working games anywhere from northern Maine, to western Pennsylvania, all the way down to the Washington, D.C. area. If the Atlantic Ocean wasn't in the way, they would have wanted me to travel east as well. I had little kids at home and I didn't want to spend my entire weekends on the road, especially with our northeastern winter weather.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

It's probably a lot different now, but twenty years ago I was approached, and encouraged, to work low level college games. I declined because ...

Back then, it was very difficult for new college officials to get any assignments. Most had to "pay their dues" by accepting last minute fill-ins (illness, injury, etc.) for a few years, and if you turned back the fill-in, you were not likely to get another call very soon.

One new college official, on my local high school board, received a phone call early one Saturday morning and was told to be in Orono, Maine, for an early afternoon game. For me, that was the straw that broke the camel's back that led me to decline any invitation to work low level college games.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

For some reason, it's real easy around here to get a Division II, or Division III, women's schedule, and only slightly more difficult to get a men's Division III college schedule. I really have no idea why, I know nothing about the politics of college officiating, assigning etc.

We have college officials on our local high school board who aren't even full varsity high school officials. Some of them have what we call a split schedule, working both varsity, and junior varsity, high school games. That's how good some of them are. Maybe, in your part of the woods, all of the college guys are the top dogs in the high school ranks, but that certainly isn't true around here.

It speaks more, IMO, about the politics involved for an official to break into the varsity HS ranks in your area.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich

It speaks more, IMO, about the politics involved for an official to break into the varsity HS ranks in your area.

It's very competitive, a lot of politics, but there have been some good signs lately. Our five year old mentoring program is starting to take hold. Over the past two seasons the coaches have voted a few young officials (less than ten years experience) into the state tournament. A few of the old veterans are grumbling about it, but the coaches go for quality over experience, and you probably can't fault them for that. It's nice to see deserving young officials move up the ladder without kissing political a*s, but rather, just based on the quality of their work.

Also, some of our (low level) college guys aren't really that good, they think that they are, using their college mechanics in a high school game, but they aren't. Many spend most of the pregame talking about their college assignments, and complaining about having to fill in their schedule with high school games. Some "forget" their high school jackets, or their high school jacket is "in the wash" and wear their college jacket in a high school game. Some don't take their responsibility of observing the junior varsity officials and show up a few minutes before their varsity game, or if they're a "split" officials (varsity and subvarsity) they don't stick around after their junior varsity game to observe the varsity officials. I guess that they figure that they don't need to follow the association rules because they're only in the high school association for the short haul. I'm sure that every high school association has a few of these guys as members.