I’ve been a conference commissioner for 10 years now, and there’s something other commissioners say that is completely true. Nobody (and I mean nobody) has ever lost a spot working for our schools based on their quality of officiating. However, I have lost a few email addresses and phone numbers based on things away from the court/field/mat, etc.

In life, in many ways, a squeaky wheel gets the grease. When dealing with 24 schools and multiple sports requiring officials, awards, medals, meetings, etc. a squeaky wheel is just loud and sometimes it’s easier to replace the wheel than use up a lot of grease.

Recently, we had a event where we hired officials and, at the last minute we added to the event. Nothing much at all, to be honest, and this was clearly offset (more than offset) by having few competitors in a lot of our brackets. At the time, I thought nothing of it – I’m an official and I am sensitive to the needs of officials and I thought nothing of it.

For some officials, however, everything is transactional. Prior to an event with 14 schools in attendance, competition was held up by an official making a demand for an updated contract and more pay. The time the official was going to be there was not extended in any way – matter of fact, due to some schools not having a full complement of competitors, the event would end much earlier than it could’ve.

Did we pay less because of this? No. I would never dream of it. I always consider the opportunity cost when something happens – when power outages caused the postponement of a basketball game, I ensured the officials got full pay. It wasn’t their fault and it was far too late to find other work that evening. So they get paid. It’s the same when officials arrive to a field only to have it rain and the event postponed – we pay their full game fee.

But this scene, communicated to me by a conscientious athletic director, was just too much. One official was behind this and the other 3 fell in line just cause I think it was easier to go with the flow.

This official could be the best official in the state, but it’s unlikely I will ever hire this person again.

Same thing for the officials who consider games place-holders on their schedules — if something comes along closer to home or if there’s a second game attached (read: more $$), it’s no big deal for those officials to simply say “something came up” and dump their contracted game. Later I look at that official’s schedule and now he’s working somewhere else at the same level, likely cause he got to work the JV game prior and made more money.

I’ve been a high school official for 37 years now. I get off games from time to time — things come up in my life or I have injuries or get sick. Life happens. But I always do my best to find a qualified sub if the assigner wants me to – and have never traded one game for another.

For every “game of the century” I’ve worked (I worked one years ago not too far into the century where there was an absurd amount of media attention) I’ve worked 40+ point running-clock games. The way I look at things, I work the game on my schedule that evening. I can only control my schedule so much and every game needs 3 officials now.

Honestly, I think this is just an opportunity for me to vent from the other side, but also put out the message that other commissioners and assigners feel the same way – we talk, we compare notes, and officials that cause drama or problems usually do so for more than one of us. The officiating shortage doesn’t make these things acceptable.

Talking with another commissioner I officiated with last night, he made a comment I empathize with – he would rather postpone an event than hire some officials. I agree entirely. Think about that – how bad do things have to be where you’d rather deal with moving an event to another day just to avoid doing business with some people?

And remember what I said at the beginning of this – I have never stopped using an official because of performance issues.