conflict of interest?

[Durham]

Originally Posted by waltjp

That may all be true, but it doesn't alter what others are thinking of you.

Like I said, don't tell them where you went to school and it will be a non issue.

[Rich]

When I worked college baseball, I was assigned to a school where I was a CURRENT (MBA) student. I told the assignor and he told me to go work the games anyway, that nobody would know or care. I thought (and still do) that moving 2 officials would've been a better choice.

I do not advertise where I live. I don't cheer at local sports events (I don't have time to attend them since I'm already working elsewhere). I did work 2 GV basketball games at the local school cause I was contracted before I moved and, quite frankly, I know *nobody* in town. Now that my daughter's in the district, I'm doing nothing more than working a paid scrimmage and maybe a subvarsity game from time to time.

I see officials wear their alma maters on their sleeves and go to local games and cheer as if they were still in high school. I guess that works for them, but I'm paranoid enough to recognize that the conference where I live has 11 other teams and that being seen as a homer for one conference team (and I know at least one guy with that reputation locally) taints the perception of the official when he works any games in the conference. And I'm not willing to throw away 11 teams to root for one -- and it doesn't matter to me because I didn't grow up here.

Maybe I'll feel different when my daughter is playing basketball (if she does).

[parepat]

How far do we take this. How about we move the Stanford replay guy from the booth at Stanford over to the Oregon game. Now, Stanford is 2nd in the PAC 10. The replay official makes a call against Oregon who loses. Now Stanford shares the PAC 10 title. Where does it end. The point is that there is no way to get away from ties to the schools we officiate.

I have officiated my high school 3 times (all losses by them). Who cares. If you have a crew of five guys from your area good luck finding games that don't involve one of your schools.

I have stopped singing the alma mater before the games though.

Lastly, I bet this all came about because the PAC 10 is too cheap to pay for mileage and hotels for its replay officials.