Pointing Mechanic

[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.