Politics of Basketball

[johnny d]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

If that's true, they why don't you work 6th grade games every night instead of working "NAIA, D2 or D3 game 250 miles" away from your house. I smell BS.



No, what was unbelievable was your smart@ss remark to an official you don't even know about what you perceive as his desires. Very condescending to say the least.

And yet not nearly as smart@ssed or condescending as your remarks above or many of your other posts. It is rather amusing that you so frequently choose to utilize the same devices you find upsetting in other's posts.

[Lcubed48]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

I owe you a low carb pizza.

Low carb pizza? OK! Lite beer, also? OK. You working guys can afford it.

[BatteryPowered]

Because many here may not know...in Texas there are chapters that cover a specific geographic area and each chapter has someone assign games for schools in their area to members of the chapter.

In my chapter there was a similar mini-revolt over assignments. The assignor commented that he could only go by the feedback he received and personal observations because there was no established evaluation program. The chapter spent the rest of that season putting together an evaluation committee of "top officials", establishing criteria and developing grade categories identifying the type of game you would be eligible to work given your grade (from large school varsity down to middle school for both boys and girls). The next year every official in the chapter was observed and evaluated three times (and twice in each year afterwards).

The next season, even with the grades and criteria, the same officials were getting all the "big games" and large programs even though the committee had identified officials who should be getting better games (and many of them were still being given medium sized school girls varsity). At the end of that year, the Executive Committe fired the assignor and hired a new one. Funny, after that happened the "rising stars" and the officials who were making solid improvement in the craft started getting "better schedules".

So you see, sometimes it really is the good ole boy network that officials are fighting.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BatteryPowered

So you see, sometimes it really is the good ole boy network that officials are fighting.

For some, yes. I would guess that there were just as many who expected better schedules that didn't get them even after the change.

Ultimately, there are only so many big games and there are usually more officials that think they should get them than there are big games. The specific bodies that get them may have changed but someone always thinks they're getting unfairly left out....it is just a different somebody now even if the overall balance is "better" when viewed objectively.

[BatteryPowered]

Cameron Rust, I agree with you. Before I had to stop because of my health issue I could not care less what games I was assigned...to a degree. I wanted a predominate varsity schedule and that is what I received. I was fortunate enough to work a couple of rounds of play-off games the last few years and I was happy. I started officiating so late in life I accepted long ago I would never work higher than that.

But I did, and hope to again, officate becuase I enjoyed it. The money just went to the wife and daughter for shopping...next time it goes into the vacation fund.

I guess if I was younger and wanted to work college it would have mattered more. Oddly enough, my last couple of years a man spoke at a camp I attended. For years he worked a mostly varsity high school schedule and went to a "try-out camp" for a local college assignor. He was told he would never be more than a good high school official...he is currently in his 14th season as an NBA official. Local and college assignors are not always correct in their assessments.

[BktBallRef]

Originally Posted by johnny d

And yet not nearly as smart@ssed or condescending as your remarks above or many of your other posts. It is rather amusing that you so frequently choose to utilize the same devices you find upsetting in other's posts.

Whatever. Just pointing out the hypocrisy of your comments. You pop off about someone else worrying about not getting the big games, yet by your own comments your more concerned with traveling 250 miles from home to work a college game that staying near home and working any available game. Sorry if that offends you.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

... more concerned with traveling 250 miles from home to work a college game that staying near home and working any available game.

It's all about trade-offs. About twenty-five years ago, I made the decision to not pursue a college schedule (mostly due to travel distances, traffic congestion, winter weather, and young children at home), and instead, decided to fill in the free nights in my high school schedule with Catholic middle school games (closer than my almost all of my high school games).

I have no way to know how I would have done working college games, but from where I'm sitting, I have no regrets. Easy travel, good middle school basketball, good money, no politics, and I've made life-long friends in my Catholic middle school association.