Never Forget the Fundamentals
 

After you've done this for a while, you tend to take things for granted and one thing that was brought back to me this week was always to confirm with the school that there actually is a game on the date and at the time and place you have it on your calendar.

I got home last night after work and my girlfriend said, "Did you get your messages? Someone called and said you had a game tonight." Now, I'm scatterbrained about a lot of things, but not usually about my officiating schedule, and it's not so jam-packed that I'd overlook one. So I checked my state association's online schedule and, no, I wasn't supposed to work a game last night.

GF asked if they'd called my cell phone, and they said they did, but there were no missed calls on my cell. She said she thought the person had said one town, and it was the town where I had actually worked the night before, so I wasn't sure what the heck happened and figured I'd follow up with the state this morning.

But when I got into work, there was a message from the athletic secretary at the school where I thought I was working tonight apologizing because she had entered the wrong date in the computer and none of the four guys who were on the game (which we thought was tonight) showed up, but one guy DID show up who wasn't scheduled, just completely out of the blue. The school's AD was a longtime official, so he and the one guy and two coaches filled in and got through the game (apparently), because the opposing team had traveled several hours to get there and they had to play the game. There were no incidents.

So we were all at fault for not confirming with the school. Sometimes we might get too reliant on technology and stuff like this happens. Though your season may be coming to an end wherever you are, it never hurts to keep in your mind that the things we take for granted can often be the things we overlook and which cost us.

Hello AIA partner. This sounds a little fishy to me. Those gals at the office are usually right on and the fact that an unscheduled ref shows up makes me a little bit suspicious. I know from past experience especially at the lower levels, schools will deviate from protocol and sometimes take matters into their hands. Not saying this is the case in your situation but does happen. Did you call the AIA office?

Tried, but Our Lady of Perpetual Scheduling is out of the office until Monday. I spoke with the school this morning.

The guy who showed up actually WAS originally on the game but was replaced a day or two before, as were the other two (I was the only guy originally on the game who stayed on the game). I don't know him, so I have no idea how or why he came to be there.

Regardless, always call to confirm.

I can't believe that one official worked with volunteers. I would never, ever work a game with volunteers if my partners din't show up.

I used to coach a very low level youth team as well *** officiate.
We had a nothing game (in terms of standing) where only two refs showed up. The coach from the other team knew me from officiating, and actually suggested that I step in as a third so that they could play instead of calling the game.
Only part about it that I found hard was - not throwing too many flags against my kids for small infractions (because they SHOULD know better!). The other team was happy to have been able to play, and didn't complain about any calls.

The school isn't without blame here. Someone should have caught it that no one had called to verify. A few years ago here in OK we were riding back from a game and listening to the radio for scores. The announcers were talking about a large class game where the refs hadn't shown up. Of course they were having a field day with it blaming the refs for everything. This was a Friday night game so it sounded kind of goofy to me. How do refs just not show? At least without a phone call saying they'd been in an accident or something. Well what had happened was that the home team A.D. had not turned the game in to the local Officials association. He had accidentally left it off his list. Therefore they never assigned anyone to the game. And the A.D., or whoever should have, never realized that he had never heard from anyone and didn't make a call to find out who was assigned.

We had a Varsity game on a Thursday night and got in the car to head home, and were listening to scores, and much like the previous post the officials had not shown up at a game in a neighboring town. Comes to find out, WE were supposed to be there too.

Originally the games were scheduled Thursday and Friday, but the Friday game got moved to Thursday and when they called our crew chief he thought they had said they had to cancel that game (in favor of playing it a different week in the season and using their bye week that week) and they had really told him it was moved to Thursday and he said okay.

No offense, but how does your CC screw that one up?

Also, if you move a game, cancel is the wrong word. Postpone is the word you're looking for.

AFAIK, everyone has accepted their share of the blame in this (we're at fault as a crew as well) and nobody feels worse about it than the school personnel. I offer it only as a reminder that we sometimes rely too much on technology and that a 30-second phone call can save a lot of headaches for everybody concerned.

I can't say that things are perfect here in Texas because there have been games that didn't have officials. Our assignment secretary for our chapter handles all communications with the schools. Each week for the games that we have contracted, he will send out a listing of the crew assigned to that game to both teams coaches. The coaches should know that if they haven't received that listing then they should be calling. Last year there was a pretty big game in which the coach didn't know what chapter wanted to use. As the week progressed he totally forgot to contact a chapter to arrange for officials They ended up putting some college coaches on the field to officiate and a member of our chapter was there to watch his son play and he assisted them with making sure they marked off penalties correctly without providing any judgment to them.

The ladies in the AIA office get it right 97% of the time...... usually when a screw up happens its from lack of communication from the schools.. (not placing blame..they have a LOT on their plate also) The system here beats having a bunch of local associations by far......

AIA seems to me to be a very good state association and, yes, they're very good at what they do in this regard.