Career No-nos.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

WTF??

Coming from the guy who - for years and years - has used the "In my area, we do..." argument to justify his interpretations of things??

That is just downright hilarious.

Almost all the time when I have talked about "In my area..." I was talking about assignments, association structure and what is required to be licensed. This is not in that category AT ALL!!!! So if I want to work the Mid-Suburban or North Suburban Conferences, there are no LOAs that is associated with those conferences. And if the assignors tried to make that requirement, they probably would have a harder time to get officials to work for them or the schools would see an entirely different group working their post season contests from what they saw in the regular season. It does not go over well here to never see playoff officials in regular season tournaments or conference games.

What you do professionally seems to be the same across the country for the most part. Are there things like the type of shirt you wear or the specific pants you wear might vary? Of course there are. There are over 5000 officials in the State of Illinois in basketball alone, I think there are going to be some differences in attitudes of all those individuals. Just under 200 assignments of that number will work the post season in a particular class and some officials work across classes in a given year. But there are common threads across those individuals that are assigned games and this would be one of them.

Yes, I think it looks unprofessional to go to a game dressed. The author of the list I posted basically said that, "It looks like you are going to a game from another game or about to leave to work another game." And other than JAR, I have never heard that was acceptable. Even in our area we have officials that do this, but when opportunities come open, many of those guys find themselves left out and some wonder why that is the case.

We are not talking about a mechanic where we blow the whistle or not blow the whistle on a throw-in. We are not talking about when you go to the scorer's table before the game and what you say in the captain's meeting. We are not talking about who calls a foul to the basket and how we communicate the ball going in the basket on the foul. Those are things you do based off of your "area." To me this is not one of them. Even if I did not have a specific place to dress, I am dressing somewhere before and after the damn game, PERIOD!!! And if a administrator from a school thinks that makes me a PITA, then I will be a PITA because I am not going to a game dressed. I might not be coming from a place where I can get dressed before the game. And I would not give a damn what others thought at the school, I am not coming dressed and getting my uniform soiled before the game by weather or something in the elements and then going to work that game with a mud stain or drink stain on my pants or shirt. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN with me, ANYWHERE!!!! Just like I am not going to a date or a job interview in jeans and a T-shirt, I am not working a game doing the same. I do not give a darn what everyone else does. And if I am with a woman that thinks that is acceptable, then I would not want to be with her in the first place.

Peace