Almost 3 – I think there were only 3 varsity games scheduled (boys or girls) yesterday, the 23rd of December.

So, we’ve reached Christmas. It’s Christmas eve here at my desk and I have Trans-Siberian Orchestra playing Christmas music and the rest of the family has still not managed to get out of bed, which gives me some time to write.

Basketball season is feeling more like a grind to get through these days – it’s likely because I have experienced it from both sides for the last 10 years – as an assigner and as an official.

I think it’s something else now as well.

We have, as a good friend and fellow assigner says, a too many games problem.

When I moved to Wisconsin in 2002 (after officiating for 15 years in 5 other states), schools could schedule 20 games (at every level). Today, that number is 24 at the varsity level and 22 at every other level. Multiply that by 500+ schools and two genders and….there are a LOT more games. There are also a LOT more rec programs and tournaments that run during the season as well.

I’ll take the too many games concept further – we have a complete lack of flexibility from conferences and schools to move off the traditional nights for games. And for many schools, they only care about their schedules, their gym availability, and playing on Tuesdays and Fridays when a lot of coaches want to play.

Here’s an example. Tuesday I was scheduled to officiate a garden-variety conference boys basketball game. So, we needed 3 officials, right? Nope. Alongside the varsity (3 officials), we had a JV game (2 officials), and a JV2 game (2 officials). So now that’s SEVEN officials needed at one school for one night. And I’ve been to places where they also had a second JV2 game or middle school games, so now you’re up to 9. All on a Tuesday night when there is activity at well over 350 schools in the state (I’d give exact numbers, but the scoreboard/schedule on WisSports has been down for a week or so).

I won’t pretend there are 7-9 officials needed at all schools. At a vast majority of schools, the number is 5 or 7. Still, we need to consider that it’s more than just the 3 varsity officials times the number of varsity games on the schedule.

More frequently now then ever, the varsity officials you’re seeing at 7PM (or 7:15 or 7:30) aren’t on their first game of the day. Those officials may have come from a 4PM JV2 game. They may have just worked the JV game or JV2 game at 5:45. Or they may have worked the other gender’s varsity game as part of a DH.

No judgement to those who work multiple games at all – without them, we wouldn’t get all the games covered these days. I just think we need to start being a bit more thoughtful on how we schedule.

First off, Mondays are days that are horribly underused. The reason I hear most often is that “coaches don’t like to play Mondays.” Monday is a school day and there are already some non-conference games being played Mondays, so there’s no reason why we can’t put more conference games on Mondays. These days we can’t put coach preference above the ability to schedule officials for games.

When I write our conference schedules, we play a Tuesday/Friday/Thursday rotation for both genders – what this means is that each conference school is scheduled for 3 games in 2 weeks. One week they’ll play Tuesday and Friday in conference and the next they will have one conference game, a Thursday.

But right now what’s happening? Those schools will schedule non-conference games (or crossovers against conference opponents in other divisions) on that open Tuesday. Then ask for officials. Those games could be played Mondays.

Here’s my simple solution that I think would even out the number of officials needed:

(1) No non-conference games on Tuesdays or Fridays after the conference schedule starts. Want to play a non-con game? It has to be a Monday, Thursday, or Saturday. Or if both districts agree, on a Wednesday.

(2) If you have JV2 or varsity reserve, play those games another time. Play on Saturday morning. Play on an off night. But the days of needing 7-9 officials per school should end and should be avoided going forward.

(3) If you’re going to use a varsity crew for JV in emergencies, then hire all of them. Many times crews ride together and if you’re going to have officials double up, don’t be cheap and say you don’t want to pay the third one. Otherwise, the varsity officials should probably politely decline and come for the game they’d been scheduled to work.

There are things we can do to slow down the shortage of officials. I admit that without some movement towards the recruitment of more officials, we are simply increasing the size of the bandage used to cover the ever-more-gaping wound. But we need to start somewhere. We also need to consider that maybe there was nothing wrong with that 20-game season…

(A postscript here: There’s another tangentially related thing I wish ADs and other assigners would practice as a matter of course. When I look for officials, I list the location, opponent, time of start, and the pay. So many assigners simply list that they need 1 and it’s at 7PM. For me, as an official, that’s not enough information. I don’t want to have to decline a contract after I’ve agreed to work, so please give me all that information up front.

For example, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an officials to say they can’t work a game more than an hour away due to…..whatever. I also think it’s OK when an official says “I won’t work a game for less than $(insert dollar amount here).” I also think it’s OK to say “I won’t work at that school” for whatever reason. As independent contractors this is an official’s right. When an official knows this information up front, the official can make that decision and choose not to reply to the inquiry.)