Honestly, I do not think that was ever really the case. I have heard of a lot of people getting college games and the supervisors did not care if you were working anything before. That sounds more like what used to say, but never was the case.

Just look at the careers of some of the top buys that have been working D1 for 20 or 30 years and many of them did not even work a HS varsity game before they worked a college game. I can think of a couple of people that made that clear in Referee Magazine when they talked about their college or pro careers.

Peace

1. Why is experience in quotes?

2. Help me understand here: You think working practices and games of their relevant competition level will give an official enough "experience" to work college games if they know the rules, how to get in the right spot, etc?

3. Ballpark...How many practices and games do you think would be needed to learn those "tangential issues" so that he or she could couple them with the key aspects you identified and be in a good position to get picked up?

I will simply say that our local HS association wanted to assign my #1 son to a preseason JV-G scrimmage the year he was on staff for a D1 conference and the NBA D-league. I am not averse to the idea you should create your own advancement opportunity and not be dependent on guidance or encouragement from the traditional groups. It is not in their interest to have you advance beyond their span of control.

Apparently you didn't pay attention to my very first response:

*Interesting and insightful perspective. When you said that such traditional groups do not have a vested interest in you "advancing beyond their span of control [on you]"...Me like!

ok

That is not limited to young officials. I'm intimately familiar with an older official who swam through those same murky waters.

I moved a lot from my first year of officiating (1987) till I settled in at my current location 12 years ago.

I was terrible as an 18 year old, I'm sure. I just didn't fall into the right group and I was in college and it was just beer money. I worked my first varsity game my junior year of college, but I still wasn't very good.

Then I moved to grad school. Took me a season and a half to get promoted to varsity.

Moved again. Worked a full varsity schedule, but knew I was only staying for one season.

Moved again.

Moved again.

Moved again.

I've seen every kind of group, from the one who would watch you work for a few minutes and assign you like a veteran to those who had artificial rules in place that would have Earl Strom working 3+ years of JV girls.

Thankfully I moved to a place where I can direct my own HS schedule. I don't work EVERY conference in the area, but I end up with more games than I plan on working every season. I went to camps, my postseason assignments improved - last year I worked state -- 27 years and 6 states in. I'm a HS official for life. I work college football and college baseball and I still see myself as a HS guy first and foremost.

Now that I assign, I run into all kinds of officials. Guys who ask me what the game pays before I get a word out. Guys who are 18 and already think they're NBA-quality officials. Guys who are 40 year vets who get games who I won't hire based on what I see of them.

Until you remove people from the equation, this won't change.

And if I was young, pretty, and ran like a gazelle, I'd be looking to escape to NCAA or pro basketball as quickly as I could.

*At best I can offer here is 2 to 5 years. There is a book called "The Tipping Point" that indicates that the average human needs 3500 to 5000 hours of practice, experience, feedback/evaluation on a task to transition from complete novice to satisfactory performer. So, I think that is a good baseline to begin with.

Are we good here?

Yep. Thanks for expanding.

We have a lot of young officials that think they should after a year work a full varsity schedule, but cannot handle a low-level varsity game already. HS and college in almost every case has nothing to do with each other. Just like working the NBA or pro ball has nothing to do with what you accomplished at the lower levels. It actually never was apart of the process unless you just happened to work college for someone that assigned some high school. And even in those cases, that only applies to their standards, not everyone that assigns college basketball.

Peace

I can give you a real life fast track story.
 

Michael Nance, Larry Nance's little brother. I worked JV games with him for one year and he went to camp and was picked up the next year. He moved to Atlanta and the rest is history. He is a very good D1 official. Brian Forte, Joe Forte's son is another one that went through our association very briefly and has been in the NBA for 5 or 6 years. Both of them knew what they wanted to do and went for it.

*Which again lends credence to my intial point: Officiating has become so "standardized" that one can enter the reffing vocation at their desired level of competition and eventually become a satisfactory ref without wasting away your prime health years in hopes of moving up via the traditional ranks--when it may not pan out. Now please bear in mind that not every official wants to 'move up'. I know some guys/women who are content with just doing recreational leagues--making an extra $100 on the wknd, others who want to do college, and yet others who want to remain at the nfhs level. We are not assigning any "value-statement" to the choices one is free to make, but rather emphasizing the available options for in our vocation.

When You're Ready ...
 

I don't remember Earl Strom being a member of my local board, but that's the rule here, at least for now. Our current president is working on putting new system into place with no mandatory "waiting period" for new officials to work varsity games.

FWIW, and this is a different sport, but there are people with zero or very little umpiring experience who go to professional umpire school and get hired. They may or may not make it to MLB, but umpiring freshmen/JV games for 8-10 years isn't going to prepare them for professional baseball more than actually working those games will.