can't get games

[BornToReferee]

Originally Posted by HugoTafurst

From reading the posts, I'm not sure your education extends to how the officiating racket works.

Therein lies the problem -- racket.

[CecilOne]

OK, I think this is over.

"born to " , you are stuck with the situation unless you can get an apology accepted or maybe restart next year, so be glad you have USSF.

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by BornToReferee

You're probably not the guy that should be participating in this discussion.

You're already mad.

I never revealed the identity of the people of the association or the assocation itself.

You're making claims that I mouth off about everything. It's laughable because if you knew me you'd be like 'ummm...forget that stuff I said about you earlier.'

None of that is true. Good grief. Later.

Well, you posted on a public board... you don't get to pick and choose who replies to you. I'm really not mad, not at all... nothing to be mad at... and the identity of these people is entirely irrelevant. Hugo asked if you were ready to accept the consequences of being right ... an apt question when dealing with a situation where you might be right, but if you push the issue you will suffer some ramifications... Your response was nonsensical, and I really was trying to find your point in that mess.

Also, I made no such claims. I just told you that your attitude is clear here - and likely clear to your coworkers - and as such, your assignor is likely aware.

[APG]

Originally Posted by BornToReferee

Not sure how to respond to this, if at all.

I'm highly educated. I got transferable skills and comparable experiences.

What would you provide to those in your area that the current association would not or is not able to provide? If they haven't had any issues with the current association, what incentive would anyone have to pick your new association? Who would you have to even follow you into your new association. You're a rookie...why is anyone going to follow a rookie who's barely worked any amount of games? Why would they join your new association when you'd almost certainly have no games to assign?

You only have a couple of realistic options. Talk with the assignor, claim some sort of miscommunication and getting off on the wrong foot, and that you'd like to start over again. The other option is expanding where you're willing to work and work in another area. The other option is to be "right" and not work any games.

The option to start a new association would only be feasible if you were able to get a decent amount of officials to cross over to your new board. And unless there are some other outside factors, this probably won't happen. Otherwise, your transferable skills and comparable experiences aren't going to mean jack **** to anyone.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

If you really do want to work in this business, find some humility, realize that you are not smarter than everyone else in the room, admit when you are wrong and learn from those you can learn from. You're currently on the opposite road on all of these.

Best advice of the thread, and it applies to the real world, too.

Or, you can continue to be right.

Trying to start your own association at this point will be a swift career-ender. Frankly, unless you develop some humility, expanding your territory to a new association will result in the same situation at some point.

[Rich]

There's nothing worse than a new guy who thinks he knows it all and that he's entitled to something in return for his initial investment.

I've assigned plenty in my 25+ years officiating. Among assignors the worst kind of official to deal with is the high-maintenance one.

[LIUmp]

Originally Posted by Manny A

Okay, so if I understand you correctly:
1. You are assigned games and you accept them with the caveat that you would do research to verify coverage (or the lack thereof).
2. Some significant amount of time (not clear from your post) goes by before you are called by a coach to find out if you're coming, and you tell him No.
3. You contact the assignor telling him you won't do the games, so he tells you he's taking you off his list.
4. THEN you decide to call to check on your coverage??



So now you're blaming the assignor? Sounds to me like you didn't do your due diligence when you told your assignor that you were going to check on your coverage. If I were the assignor and you told me that, I would have expected a follow-up response within a day or two to let me know what you found out. Instead, you never got back to him until the day of the games; of course he's going to be pissed off. He probably assumed you checked and everything was okay.

I really can't offer you a solution that's going to get you onto the ball field to umpire games. You pursue suing these folks, they're never going to want your services, regardless of how the suit plays out.

This.

You didn't handle it well, or professionally. If you knew the games were coming, you should have done your homework. Now, you left your assignor out to dry. What would have happened if the coach didn't call to verify with you? You wouldn't have bothered?

[Rich]

Originally Posted by LIUmp

This.

You didn't handle it well, or professionally. If you knew the games were coming, you should have done your homework. Now, you left your assignor out to dry. What would have happened if the coach didn't call to verify with you? You wouldn't have bothered?

Most of us officiate as independent contractors. As such, I never assume others will take the responsibility to protect my interests. It's why I've had NASO coverage for a long as I can remember and I also have a personal umbrella policy.

Seems the thread has pretty much run its course, but I'll leave it open as long as everyone remains civil.

[chapmaja]

I am making my comment from the assignor's point of view, since I do assign another sport (non-softball), for a HS league in my area.

The assignments had been accepted, and he heard no additional word from you stating an issue. The DAY OF THE GAME, you were called and then you notified them you were not doing the game.

While you may have a legit basis for not doing the game, the fact you accepted and declined the day of the game, without a reasonable reason does two things. One, if causes a problem for the assignor, who now has to scramble to get a replacement. Second, it may cause a problem for the teams if a) no replacement is found or b) they have already processed payment for you. When you piss off the assignor and the teams, things generally don't go well.

Now, from an assignors position. I have had officials fail to show up for agreed upon games previously. One of them is still working for me, while another is no longer on my list. The one who is still working for me has a long history of working well as an official. The other was removed after he missed a meet, which was added to turning back two assignments for the fall season, and missing a contest I was supposed to work with him.

I think filing a lawsuit over this would be wrong. You need to get the liability issues straightened out, get liability insurance to cover you for games outside this organization, and attempted to repair a fractured relationship with the assignor and teams.


Filing a lawsuit will only accomplish one thing. It will end any potential chance you have of working games for this assignor ever again. I know when officials complain about not getting assignments from me, they are moved farther down the list for available contests. If any filed lawsuits, they would be off my list in a heartbeat. AS the assignor it is my job to put the officials who I feel are best suited to work these contests on these contests. If you show you are unwilling to work with me, and choose to file a lawsuit, you have proven to me you are not willing to be a team player, and I only want team players working for me.

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by BornToReferee

The issue of other insurance wasn't know over that time span.

Hmph. For someone who is much more concerned with adequate insurance coverage and potential litigation, I would have expected you to be able to teach a class on the subject at umpire clinics.

I think it speaks volumes that there isn't anyone here that feels you did no wrong. I'm not suggesting that the assignor was completely in the right here. But there is a reasonable expectation that the scheduling of umpires for games is a shared responsibility. The assignor is responsible for making the assignments, and the umpires are responsible for knowing they are fully qualified and capable of taking those assignments. You failed in making sure you were qualified--at least in your mind when it comes to insurance--and dropped the ball on giving the assignor a proper heads up. And now you want to sue. You're not going to get any sympathy here from people who have been on both sides of the fence for much longer than you.

[robbie]

I would not hire you either.

There were 2 "should I sue?' comments and 1 "grevience" comment.

Sorry - next..........................

[Moosie74]

I can understand that you feel the need to have insurance coverage and that's been rehashed here over and over so I'm not going to address that issue.

If you're unsure about taking a game for whatever reason you need to tell the assigner that you're not available for these games, please let me know about games next week or whatever their assigning period is.

This buys you a few days to do your research. As a rookie softball umpire you may feel like there's a chance something will happen that you will be sued for, for myself as a 20-year official, I quit worrying about that a long time ago knowing the odds are in my favor there won't be an issue.

When you wish to officiate, you're at the mercy of the assigner who controls the available work. S/he is your entry to doing the games and you need to respect that situation.

It's really not fair to the rest of your officials to take a game and then not show for it, it makes everyone look bad. If I'm in your association and know that you've taken a game and I'm sitting at home watching the grass grow because there are no other unassigned games and I decide to go down to the local park and find that the only umpire assigned to the game or there's now a single umpire because someone failed to show, I'm not going to be impressed with you especially if there is an umpire and they say, oh, Jim was supposed to be here, don't know where he is....not ok.

[REFANDUMP]

There's a major issue which I haven't seen addressed here. For sake of simplicity, let's assume the organization you normally umpire for is ABC. Is this tournament sanctioned by organization DEF or is it totally unsanctioned ?? If it's sanctioned by organization DEF, why wouldn't you have just paid the fees and umpired ??? If it's totally unsanctioned, I can understand your concerns about working, however I would have still worked after giving my word to the assignor. I also would have however, made sure the assignors superiors were made known that he was assigning games for unsanctioned tournaments. I don't think this would have gone over well for the superiors in organization ABC.

If you're not willing to apologize, I would start checking to see if there are any youth baseball organizations that need umpires, or be willing to jump in your car to work softball games. You don't have any other options that I see.

[Floyd P]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

Get Justice? Hmmmm.



My suggestion to go "over their head" was because you said they are assigning unsanctioned events under the moniker of some National organization... if they are doing to --- the organization is not going to like that. Assuming what you've told us is true, what they are doing is wrong, and it needs to be stopped.

Absolutely... if its an organized league or games being played then SOMEONE has to be sanctioning it, I find it really hard to believe that any field owner would allow teams to be playing on their field without some type of insurance, with that being said most cities/schools only recognize National associtions with insurances and CERTIFIED officials working the games.

Somethings fishy here and we're not on the lake

[KJUmp]

If you had paid the $110 annual fee to NASO, which probably better than 90% of the members who post her regularly belong to, you would have had absolutely no insurance/liability concerns, worked your assigned games, been well on your way to building a schedule with this particular assigner, and had a tax deduction to boot.

NASO membership is the best deal going for any serious sports official. I don't have worry about 'squat' regarding insurance etc. when I'm on my way to any softball or basketball assignment, meeting, or camp no matter what sanctioning body is involved.

Just my two cents.