Just a reminder to all the other officials out there...keep track of every single expense you incur while on the job. Mileage, gas, food, lodging, etc. It's all deductible come tax time and will save you a bunch of money on your taxes. I didn't keep my records as well as I should have and am now stuck taking the federal standard deduction when I know I should be deducting more. I could always estimate but I run the risk of getting called on it. They already take a hard enough look at Schedule C filers already.
Anyways, off to finish up my taxes. I will be back with a regular post at some point today, and it will be full of all kinds of juicy tidbits from this past weekend of work.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
It's been a couple days since I posted because I haven't worked since my last post. I have some youth league games coming up this afternoon, but other than that I'm not working again until next Wednesday. Today should be some interesting games, the only question is whether it will be good interesting or bad interesting. It's a huge multi-court facility with games going on from 8 AM to 8PM pretty much every weekend. I actually got a set of games in the afternoon which is rare for me, usually I just work the morning ones. Anyways to go back to my earlier statement about the games being interesting, it's because this league is very hit or miss. You have your one or two dominating teams in each age bracket, then you have the average teams, and then come the really bad teams. Depending on what match ups you get is what determines how your game goes. Last week for instance I had a 5 game set (insane? maybe...) and of the 5, 4 were not even close. They were all varsity level games too with the exception of the last one being a 10U I believe. The ironic thing was the quality of the 10U game blew the Varsity games out of the water. Hopefully tomorrow I will get some good games on my court. I should have an interesting time with my partner too, I've never actually worked/talked much with him before. It will be interesting to see how we mesh on the court. I'll post the full details soon, good or bad.
And in case I don't post before then, Happy Easter to everyone who reads my blog (if anyone actually does) :)
And in case I don't post before then, Happy Easter to everyone who reads my blog (if anyone actually does) :)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Game Report 4/8/2009
3 games of adult league basketball tonight. Typical "wreck league" warriors, trying to do what they used to be able to do 10 years ago, and when they can't they assume they were fouled. Who gets the flack from it? Me. Why? Because I'm always the younger and smaller one on the crew. Like tonight for instance...I'm the R for the game and my partner makes a shooting foul call that one team doesnt like. Despite the fact that my partner was the lead right in front of it and had a great angle on the play, they expect me to come in and overrule him. First of all, I would never do that to a partner unless it was egregious, never mind the fact that I would have had to see through 8 players to see the play. Sometimes players are just plain stupid...
Apart from that little situation above, tonight was fairly uneventful. No T's, or ejections makes for a good night's work. I was pleased with my foul selection and the way I interacted with the players. They respected me, so I respected them in return. My ankle was bothering me a tad, especially in the last game. Lots of turnovers in that game which means lots of sudden stops and direction changes. Maybe I need to look into some shoes with better ankle support? Or maybe tape it before work? I'll have to see how it holds up tomorrow.
More to come later...
Apart from that little situation above, tonight was fairly uneventful. No T's, or ejections makes for a good night's work. I was pleased with my foul selection and the way I interacted with the players. They respected me, so I respected them in return. My ankle was bothering me a tad, especially in the last game. Lots of turnovers in that game which means lots of sudden stops and direction changes. Maybe I need to look into some shoes with better ankle support? Or maybe tape it before work? I'll have to see how it holds up tomorrow.
More to come later...
Background
Just thought I should provide a little background on myself. I'm 20 years old and a college student. I started officiating when I was about 16 at my local YMCA, and I continued with that until I left last year. My real goal was to work high school ball, so as soon as I graduated from high school in June 2007, I signed right up for the local high school association. I entered into the association in September 2007 and began work at the Freshman/JV level. This past year I was one of the senior members of the Probationary (Frosh/JV) officiating class, and I helped out with some mentoring and/or minor instruction on the side. I'm angling for a promotion to Varsity status this year and aim to strut my stuff during summer league.
As a full time college student, I support myself solely through officiating. I work for two different officiating companies in addition to the HS association. One is primarily focused on adult leagues during the week, with some youth leagues thrown in. The other is entirely youth league, and only runs on the weekend. Between the two I make enough money to survive, but I also get to practice my mechanics and stay in shape year round which is an enormous benefit. I'm also doing something I love, which also comes with enormous benefits.
As for the meaning of my blog's title? During the game there are really three teams on the floor, the two competing teams and the officiating crew. In order for the first two teams to have a good game, the third teams has to have a good game as well. (More on that later...)
As a full time college student, I support myself solely through officiating. I work for two different officiating companies in addition to the HS association. One is primarily focused on adult leagues during the week, with some youth leagues thrown in. The other is entirely youth league, and only runs on the weekend. Between the two I make enough money to survive, but I also get to practice my mechanics and stay in shape year round which is an enormous benefit. I'm also doing something I love, which also comes with enormous benefits.
As for the meaning of my blog's title? During the game there are really three teams on the floor, the two competing teams and the officiating crew. In order for the first two teams to have a good game, the third teams has to have a good game as well. (More on that later...)
Introduction
First of all, however you got to my blog, welcome.
What is this blog you ask? It's really quite simple. This blog is intended to be a chronicle of my journey through the ever so exciting world of basketball officiating. That's right, basketball officiating. I'm not out there to demonize officials, critique officials or anything like that. It's simply going to be my journey up through the ranks.
As far as I know, there is only one other blog out there actually written by an official and I highly recommend you check it out: illegalscreen.blogspot.com It's good stuff. Hopefully there is room for one more out there.
Let's begin.
What is this blog you ask? It's really quite simple. This blog is intended to be a chronicle of my journey through the ever so exciting world of basketball officiating. That's right, basketball officiating. I'm not out there to demonize officials, critique officials or anything like that. It's simply going to be my journey up through the ranks.
As far as I know, there is only one other blog out there actually written by an official and I highly recommend you check it out: illegalscreen.blogspot.com It's good stuff. Hopefully there is room for one more out there.
Let's begin.
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