Reflections on taking some time off

[fiasco]

This marks the first basketball season since 2007-2008 that I won't pick up a whistle at all.

A lot of things factored into this decision. One of the biggest being that I packed up my family and moved across the country to a new city, far away from the association where I really started officiating, moved my way up from rec league to Jr. high, to JV and eventually Varsity. We moved in February, in the middle of last season.

But it really started before that, when I had a major falling out with my assignor. I won't go into a whole lot of detail, but I was extremely frustrated with the way he handled a particular game that I called. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't do a great job on the game.

The manner in which he reamed me out about the game (via email and without taking the time to talk to me about my side of the story about what happened during the game) and the long history of not receiving ANY sort of feedback or evaluation set me off. We had words.

After working in that association for six seasons and getting nothing but positive feedback from anyone who ever watched me (of course there was criticism, but I'm talking about overall), my assignor proceeded to tell me that he never should have promoted me to varsity, and that every official in the association he had ever talked to said they were surprised that I was working varsity games.

I told him that I had talked to many officials who had recommended me for varsity (one of whom is a D-I women's official working in the Pac-12). He told me they were all "blowing smoke up my ass" and that he made a mistake by bumping me to varsity. We had more words.

A couple of nights later, I was getting ready to leave for my game, and my 5-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl were literally tugging at my pants asking me "Why do you have to go, Daddy? Can't you just stay with us tonight?"

I was choked up all the way to the game, wondering why I was missing out on the most precious years of my kids lives four months out of the year. All for what? To be yelled at by fans and berated by my assignor?

I texted my assignor as I was in the stands and told him that night would be my last game. As fate would have it, I was offered a job across the country the very next week.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. Partly because I miss the camaraderie, and it's been a while since I've hung around other officials. I literally walked away one night, moved away the next week and just broke it off like a bad relationship. I think the other part of me is telling you all this because I wonder if any of you have ever gone through a similar experience? Or hung it up for a while because you just lost the magic?

I think maybe I'll come back one day. When the kids are older and they don't enjoy having me around so much -- it's really nice that they're still at an age where their faces light up when I walk in a room.

But for now I'm just sitting on the sidelines, watching on TV and just observing. It's kind of a weird feeling.