How does your Assoc handle this?

[Suudy]

And for our state, each association decides how to form crews. The association I was previouly in, the executive board of our association put together the crews at the start of every season. Each year the crews were mixed. In my new association, there are no crews. Each and every week our assigning secretary puts together the crews.

I preferred the former. I think it allows the crew to gel better. Constantly shifting crews makes for irregular expectations. If, for example, you know how your U or BJ works, it makes things smoother. Shifting gears each week makes it tough. However, it does help come the playoffs, because it helps you mesh better when you get a mix of officials in the post-season.

[Rich]

And I like our system here -- if I want to be a crew chief, I form a crew and try to fill a schedule.

I started with a rookie in 2003, 2004, and 2006 (the 2004 and 2006 rookies replaced other officials). Now these three rookies are on my Friday night crew and I've been able to mentor them and our crew is playoff eligible.

I chose these guys cause they are my friends -- I recruited two of them to the sport as they are outstanding officials in other sports and they were varsity officials (with the occasional mistake, nothing that hurt either team, though) from day 1. Not that I didn't worry from time to time.

It's our crew now. I still fill our schedule and choose to accept/decline games and fill our JV/Freshman schedules. I'd hate for a committee or an association to tell me who I surround myself with or whether I'll be a WH or working some other position. None of my guys WANT to be a white hat, although I've been mentoring an emergency WH, just like they do in the NFL.

So I guess we all have different systems and there are plusses and minuses in all of them. I like mine, though, which is good since I have no intention of moving anytime soon.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

And I like our system here -- if I want to be a crew chief, I form a crew and try to fill a schedule.

I started with a rookie in 2003, 2004, and 2006 (the 2004 and 2006 rookies replaced other officials). Now these three rookies are on my Friday night crew and I've been able to mentor them and our crew is playoff eligible.

I chose these guys cause they are my friends -- I recruited two of them to the sport as they are outstanding officials in other sports and they were varsity officials (with the occasional mistake, nothing that hurt either team, though) from day 1. Not that I didn't worry from time to time.

It's our crew now. I still fill our schedule and choose to accept/decline games and fill our JV/Freshman schedules. I'd hate for a committee or an association to tell me who I surround myself with or whether I'll be a WH or working some other position. None of my guys WANT to be a white hat, although I've been mentoring an emergency WH, just like they do in the NFL.

So I guess we all have different systems and there are plusses and minuses in all of them. I like mine, though, which is good since I have no intention of moving anytime soon.

I completely agree with you. If I wanted to leave the crew I am on now and find 4 other officials to form a crew, no one has any say in that. All that might happen is that we would likely not get the best of the best games based on everyone's experience, playoff history or even availability, but no one is going to tell us anywhere we cannot do it. And in many cases crews have 6-8 officials on a crew that might rotate from time to time or that are being mentored to move to other levels and join other crews. I think for HS ball this is the most appropriate and unless someone is going to pay some pensions and health benefits, I do not think any association (in theory) should be telling people who they can work for when they spend a Friday or Saturday night or afternoon away from their families. Football crews are often very close groups of people that form lifetime friendships and sometimes become enemies (kind of a strong word) based on how they handle these decisions. I certainly would not want to be working games with people I do not like or respect because someone said it is required.

Peace

[Ref inSoCA]

We change crews every year (San Diego County Football Officials Association. San Diego Section of the Calif Interscolastic Federation [CIF]).

Every June the Crew Chiefs (30, appointed by the Board) meet in a large room and draft their crews for that year. It is a rare occasion for an official to be removed from a crew. It has to be with the Assignment Secretary's and Board's approval. It's pretty much "you-drafted-him, you-live-with-him".

All High School games are assigned by one Assignment Secretary (we service 88 High Schools) so no one is out begging for games and the officials can be truly independent and disinterested.

[dldsooner]

Here in Oklahoma we are part of the OSSAA (Oklahoma Secondary Schools Athletic Association). We put our own crews together, go to the schools every 2 years and get our contracts, and generally the OSSAA has no say over who is on our crew or what games we call.

You have to be a certified official before you can call any playoff game, and that usually takes 5 years to attain certification. The OSSAA assigns playoffs, they look at several criteria to determine if you are worthy of calling playoffs, such as coach's evaluations, official rankings, years with your crew and experience.

With that being said, I would like to say this. I believe that if you are with a crew week in and week out, it makes everyone on that crew a stronger official. You know what each official is looking at and what they are supposed to be doing without having to worry if all areas of the field are being covered properly.

I know that no system is perfect and everyone one of us would argue why their system is better than the next guys, this is only what we do in my part of this world, and I seem to think that it works pretty well most of the time.
Don't get me wrong there is some brown nosing going on so that crews can get the premiere playoff games, but for the most part everything works out real well. If a crew goes out and does what their supposed to do on a Friday night, every Friday night, they will get their just rewards at the end of the season.

[Mike L]

Ref inSoCA forgot one more point, we may NOT draft anyone who was on our crew the year before.
There are a number of requirements that an official must meet in order to become certified within the assoc and therefore draftable.

[MN BB Ref]

Here in MN, at least within my association, the WH is responsible for forming his own crew. I just completed my 3rd season as a varsity WH and the only changes to my crew over that time period is at the U position. After our first season our U left to go to a more experienced crew that had a better schedule. As some have pointed out, the general consensus among the rest of us was "good luck and good riddance." After he left I took the recommendation of our assignment secretary regarding a replacement U. We tried him out last year and at the end of the season I let him go because his standards did not match those of the rest of the crew. Finally this year we found the U that we've been looking for all along. In addition it showed in our game performances and we were rewarded with playoff games in the first two rounds of the playoffs. For us this was an affirmation of the hard work that we've put in and the fact that we now have a crew that is capable of realizing our goal of offiicating a state championship game. Until that happens though we will continue to improve every year and be the best that we can be.