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David Gressett's avatar

I too used to complain about the officiating, so I decided to do something about it and become one. I have officiated hs basketball from 2016-2019, stopped because of C 19 I was not going to wear a mask and I thought it was insane to make the players wear one as well. Might get back into at some point. I digress, but the reason you have a shortage of officials at the lower levels is the pay. I made $70 per game. I was not doing it for the money. Surprisingly in my case I very rarely had any issues with the parents. I am 63 years old, and after one game a mom came out of the stands and asked me how old I was (60 at the time). She said "wow, you really move up and down the court pretty fast"

Unless you have actually officiated a game then you should not complain about the officiating. So many things are going on at one time you are bound to miss something. That being said, the holding that USC was getting away with in the game was inexcusable. If there is something consistently going on, either the other officials or the coach will tell the official responsible to look at a player as he is pushing the rules and he needs to be called out on it. The UO interception could have gone either way that was a bang bang play. Did the knee touch before the ball jarred loose? Hard to say, even in slow mo, make that call in real time. The missed down was handled properly. Anything in question you review at the next time out which was done.

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Grant's dad's avatar

It's deeper than what You're saying John...It starts at the "pop warner" or pee wee level, officials get their starts there usually and The "Little league" parents are driving them away from officiating further. I've had several friends officiate from that level and eventually to the high school and small college level and the most common theme as to why they gave it up, were "Parents". Parents are abusive to no end and constantly think their little Johnny is the next "Tom Brady" or Messi, or Aaron Judge, and they will take out their kids failings or short comings on the officials. If Parents were banned or limited in their participation at youth games there would be more officials...More officials at lower levels, means more would stick with it, and more graduating to High school and College and eventually Professional levels. It starts low...and it IS a HUGE problem.

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