I’ve tried blogging off and on for the last 20 years. Always starts out great, but in the end, I lose interest, usually due to all the stuff going on in my life. Day job, commissioner work, officiating, real estate, family, and on and on and on.

But I do want to try to do this more often, mainly cause I enjoy writing and whether or not anyone cares about what I have to say, it is nice to get my thoughts out.

Basketball season starts today. I am driving an hour to work a game in a few hours and on paper I’m not sure it will be competitive – but that doesn’t matter. We always give 100% every time we show up and the game speaks for itself. But with snow falling today I’m not sure I really want to start my season today — but I’ll feel differently when we get going.

Last season, I tore my left meniscus on December 28 working a holiday tournament. I didn’t know that until July, which is a long story — all I know is that I worked 20 more games after the tear and I hope nobody at the schools realized I was hurt. I wore a knee sleeve, used a Theragun, and even at my best (at 53 years old), nobody’s going to confuse me with being speedy. But I’m proud of my work last season — I finished with a boys sectional where our crew did good work and the video shows I managed to get up and down like I normally do.

What I wanted to cover today, though, are some various things that drive me crazy about the officiating world — random thoughts, almost — no real theme here. So here goes:

(1) I’ve argued for a long time now that officiating pay needs to improve at the high school level. Officials are doing a *job* and are not immune to the effects of inflation.

So many people think officials should do it “for the kids” and the fact that we get paid is just a bonus. To that, I say, get real.

Officials have expenses — wear and tear on vehicles, the cost of fuel, meals when away from home, uniforms, etc. — and also dedicate way more time than the time working the game. Today I will leave my house at 12:30PM, work at 2:30PM game that will end about 3:45PM, and won’t get home till at least 5:30PM. So for 5 hours of my life, I will make about $16/hours. My high school age daughter makes more per hour in her serving job. And she doesn’t have to deal with the unsportsmanlike parents and coaches who continue to make our lives difficult when all we’re trying to do is provide a fair, safe environment for teams to play.

And that $80 game fee is up from $67.50 last year, so I will both (1) give credit to that increase while saying that (2) schools sat on fees for so long that an 18.5% increase just isn’t enough to cover that time plus account for the current economic environment.

The basic law of supply and demand says that when supply decreases, demand increases and then fees/pay should go up. And yet some who make pay decisions don’t seem to recognize that.

Two schools and conference (who will remain nameless here) have disappointed me in the last few weeks in this area.

One is a school I hired non-conference officials for prior to our conference’s pay increase (from $69 to $80 this season). That school wants to pay less than the $80 (cause they have a budget). I *do not understand* why the officials should be the one to absorb the budgetary issues. The school could raise their admission fees by $1, charge more in the concession stand, buy a couple fewer basketballs this year, maybe forego a few other expenses for a year or two. Instead, the mindset is “try to eek out $20 to $30 on the backs of the officials.” Just terrible.

Another school is in the conference I assigned last year. They voted to pay $80 for softball umpires and that school just sent out a request for umpires for this spring and offered something like $65 for their non-conference games. Just shows a complete lack of respect for the work officials do.

Finally, after every conference in the area raised officiating pay for this year, one local conference is staying at $65 this year (but we’ll be at $80 next year). 5 other conferences are paying $80, but this one figures officials are contracted and will just take it. My integrity won’t let me dump games I’ve committed to, but the odds of many officials taking games at this rate when they have people get hurt or games rescheduled is about zero. I know that I will not take any more from them at $65 when every other conference in our area is paying at least $80.

(2) I know this is a function of supply and demand, but some officials have gotten much more unprofessional

— double booking, turning games back with nothing more than a “please remove me” email, taking a closer/better assignment after signing a contract for one. Those people know that with the shortage we have, it’s unlikely we will just stop hiring them, although there are a few officials where I would cancel/postpone games before giving them any work.

(3) Finally, and I know this will bother some people, but here we go anyway:

I am an independent contractor and I don’t owe anyone any assignment I don’t want to take. Do I think there can be consequences to having this opinion? Yes. I could lose future assignments, etc. Does this change anything? Not really. Before offering up some games to one of our 4-headed crew (4 of us share a schedule), I had 55-60 games booked. With that many on the schedule, I don’t need to add youth games, scrimmages, lower level games, etc.

Today is a day where there are a TON of boys basketball scrimmages (and girls basketball games) and there is a mad scramble to find officials to work those. These are all paid — some pretty well, others not so much. Despite this, there are a lot of officials who simply aren’t interested in doing them. I’m on the fence — I hate scrimmages, but I would’ve likely done one that paid well enough somewhere if I didn’t have an actual game today.

But this comes back to #1 above. So many schools are booking 3 hour scrimmages and then try to pay as little as possible for the officials they hire. I saw some places paying under $100. Some try to “get away” with 2 official crews on varsity scrimmages to save even more money. Again, supply and demand is a thing. I am willing to bet that if a school offered $160 to $180 for the 3 hour period for 3-person crews that there would suddenly not be a shortage.

I also think it’s time for some assigners to push back. Don’t commit to filling every last assignment put in front of you. Athletic directors are paid to hire non-conference officials (this includes scrimmage officials) and sometimes it’s OK to say, “No, I think I’ll let you find the officials.” ADs are also paid to hire lower level officials at their schools in this area of Wisconsin.

Personally, I have limited what I will do — I do not hire JV or freshman officials in our conference (with the exception of volleyball, where JV is part of the assignment) — it’s never been part of the job description and I simply have too many schools to deal with. Most of my schools don’t even ask for non-conference varsity games anymore – they handle those duties themselves.

Well, this is enough for today. Maybe I’ll make this part of my Saturday morning routine. Now it’s time to go take a shower and start my 36th season of working basketball. I hope on the injury front it’s a lot better than year 35.