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If you figure out the answer, bottle it and sell it. I supervise travel SB tournaments in the summer. This has been an ongoing issue for some time. I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall. I see guys/gals come into officiating and in the world of travel sports it’s usually to supplement their income, as you can make decent side hustle cash. At any rate they come into it with their eye on the $300-$1200 paycheck for a weekend’s work. You can usually tell pretty quick, the guys/gals you’re talking about will be expert officials in a couple of weeks once they figure out if anyone disagrees with them, they can just “toss them”. Then as the supervisor/UIC I have to deal with it. Here’s my thing I will do absolutely anything within my power to help a young official. What I’m trying to say is there are people officiating, who like every other walk of life are only interested in the paycheck. They have no pride in what they do, their appearance (proper uniform and looking professional), their performance, or any of the things you aspire to as a normal functioning member of society. They look at the weekend as an “quick and easy” side hustle and it just shouldn’t be that easy if you’re doing a good job. I spend a great deal of time watching hand and helping young umpires. But the uncoachable ones I don’t waste any of my time on. If they do a decent job no worries, if they’re a pain in the ass, I tell my boss don’t send them to my site. And I do hold the trump card, because as hard as officials are to find, decent site directors are even harder! Bottom line what you are seeing is largely a societal issue. How’s your experience in fast food restaurants today vs what it was 10 years ago? What about just your everyday dealings with people in general? I’m nearing the end of my officiating career. I feel like I’m working harder than I ever have. Basically at 57 it requires more than it did when I was younger. I’ve worked more games this fall than I’ve worked in years. I’ve traveled a little to do JV/Frosh/MS games. Driving an hour for a JV game and a $65 paycheck isn’t exactly adding to my IRA. Spending eight Sunday evenings driving two hours round trip plus the hourish long required association meetings doesn’t exactly add 0’s to the bank account either. All the time spent studying film, studying rules, casebook, yea just time you don’t get back. Or just Friday night at a large CI school, five guys get crammed into a little room with five chairs, two folding, one pisser, one shower, five bottles of water and five little Powerade towels. This is inside a gym with countless locker rooms in it. Left home about 3:30 got home about 11:30 for 80 bucks. I’m not whining about what we get paid or how we’re treated, honestly we probably get treated better today than we ever have. But there is this growing stigma out here there officials are all of the sudden getting rich, and it’s just simply not the case. But I will tell you this, the older I get the more schools I drive by to get to schools that take care of the officials, and it’s never been about the money.

To be followed by the #timeforlovelltoretire post.

I'll say I'd rather have an official shortage than some that are out there just for financial reasons. When a comment is made during a middle school game that the amount of pay determines their quality of officiating and youth officials making more than normal but are more concerned about getting games over faster than normal and forgetting whistles and location, I'd take a shortage. High school crew last year in a close sectional semi final (basically the final as 2 best teams were playing) giving a team 4 timeouts and then spending 5+ minutes to figure out spot & timing as well even after that and basically threw their hands up to say they still had no clue. Don't even get me started on the abomination today in Bloomington by a B1G crew that hurt both teams and the game as a whole. I'm thankful for those who are giving their best efforts and are out there for the right reasons (the kids!). I'm fine with errors, but you can tell the ones out there for additional income over doing it for the kids. Don't even want to hear the go sign up excuse as for the common rebuttal. I donate my time in multiple ways already with a young family.

If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle.

I watched them swap them out one night waiting on the rest of the guys. They rotate and they used a forklift. Coach Radtke even treated us to Spaghetti Factory afterwards.

Thanks for the guidance. It had NOTHING to do with any of that. Personal situation between myself and @Irishman But, again...thank you for the rules. @JustRules Not at all. Less than 2 minutes left. And we were all just having a duh! moment for 2 plays.

To be followed shortly by the required annual #All-InFormatSucks post.

Required annual #SeedIt post!

Man, if you can make that call from 2 still pics, we need to sign you up and get you a whistle! Unfortunately, there’s no official at the pylon where we’d like to have one. Where was the ball snapped from and what type of play was it?

Reitz, Mater Dei, and the Castle/Memorial winner will all finish with better records than the Alices. North is heavily favored to finish 5-4 as well. It's tough to finish 4th/tied for 4th in a 10 team league and claim to be top 1/3. In a band contest 60-70% of teams can claim to be top tier, but this is football.

Because we have conferences with decades of tradition.....some of us old dudes like tradition.

This is a titanic battle. Appears to be several in the state

For those concerned about Sagarin, the first two weeks should give us plenty of connections. Lower third SIAC Harrison plays a top tier PAC school. A middle third Lincoln squad faces the Greatest Show on Turf. Mater Dei will face a sectional opponent with a better record in the first round. And week 2 features Castle playing New Albany and North playing Floyd Central.

I put this here to show how balanced this draw actually was. Amazing.

I think Reitz would be on the road against both Jasper and Memorial if Harrison beats Boonville.

There's gonna be two quality games in the first two rounds. Then a running clock in the championship...kinda sad actually

Bye automatically travels

Only if Memorial gets home side and use of Hudl live 😎

I'm for seeding sectional, and for once things ended up right. 1&4 on one side 2&3 on the other.

Memorial will have 2 straight games at Enlow - 3 if you count this week...

Jasper and memorial, with Reitz and Central on the same side of the bracket. Harrison gets the bye, and Bosse v. Boonville in the other bracket.

I would really hope an official would never say the quality of their officiating will vary depending on how much they are paid. There is some truth to the fact you may get better officials if you pay more because the better officials can often be more choosy. But even that wouldn't be a guaranteed factor. But I'm going to give the same effort if I'm working a youth game for $40 as I would a college varsity game for $300. But if I have a choice between those two games I'm probably going to work the $300 game. If you are a middle school that only pays $40 and the schools around you pay $60, you'll probably get lesser quality officials. I think every official you talk to will say there is a wide variety of quality in officials from high school and below. The lower you go the more likely you are to find lesser quality officials. I will say there are a lot of very good officials who continue to work youth games too. With 900ish licensed officials plus whatever number we have unlicensed working youth and middle school games there is no way to make sure all of them are trained and understand the rules and do a good job. Compare that to all of D1 across the country. Most conferences have 6-8 crews of 8 officials. That means the P5 and G5 conferences probably have a combined 600 officials. And they have 10 supervisors that oversee their work and they all have staffs and position coaches that review their games and provide feedback and grades. And you go through a lot of evaluation and vetting to even get to that level. Kudos to everyone who puts in the effort every week to be the best they can be. Some don't put that effort and some that do don't have the personality or skills to be great. But they are at least willing to try.

I can remember working at the RCA Dome with 3 sets of hash marks on the field: NFHS, NCAA, and NFL. That’s when your Umpire earns his check.

With a running clock if you flag it the clock will keep running. Talk about it as a crew. Then go to the offensive team and him twice if he wants to accept or decline He'll likely accept so you then you need to enforce it. Your radios are dead so you have to go old school and communicate verbally about the enforcement. If you are inefficient enough you may be able to use up 2-3 minutes of the running clock. Not that I would advocate for that, but with a running clock don't worry about passing on fouls like that. It won't delay the inevitable end of the game.

It’s an issue at all schools that play on college fields. Scecina used to play some games at UIndy, Ritter plays at Marian, and there used to be a southern Indiana Classic that was played at Cardinal Stadium in Louisville. I always confirm via email with both coaches and AD’s what the situation is. It was only an issue one time, thus the emails confirming everything prior. And it wasn’t an issue until the visiting coach was getting his ass kicked by a much better team.

The rule book has specifications for the goal. If the goal (or any other aspect of the facility) is not up to spec (such as the 2 ft. - instead of 2 yd. - restricted area at Hobart), the instructions to the officials are “play the game and report it to the IHSAA.”

My physician told me I have an arthritic left knee. I knew at some point that HS/College injuries were gonna bite me. I can still run with the best.... Give me 6-7 years, and I'll consider surgery for a knee replacement. (until then) Cortisone is a hell of a drug! 😁 BTW: I'll take the Irish by 7 in this one.

Draw begins with 1A at 5PM today. ihsaa.org is streaming it live and the radio network with broadcast live.

He does... I lit him up about that call when he asked me about it! And YOU know who I am....Mr. U2 🙂 As an aside, he married Hannah (meteorologist). You do know who HER Dad is?.... Greg Sankey, SEC President. It was cool talking to him off the cuff a few times about things. Great guy, better FAMILY. But terrible call. One last thing: Is it ok to have 12 guys on defense when it's a BLOWOUT, and all you are thinking about is....Where are we going after the game? Asking for a friend.

Funny story.....as an assistant at Cathedral, we practiced special teams every day. Defensive staff ran the defensive teams, KO, Punt return, FG Block. Every week, we practiced the popup with a guy running under it to catch it, making sure it went 10 yards. Late in the season, we get a chance to try it. Not a player on R any where near the ball, our guy runs under and makes an easy catch. The flag IMMEDIATELY goes up. It was at that point we learned what Kick Catch Interference was. Just a few years ago in a JV game game, we are up late in the game at home. Outr opponent tries the exact same thing and sure enough, the kid catches it. I calmly look at the white hat, who was also a TV news anchor here in Fort Wayne, and I sad that is kick catch interference Rod. he gets pissy with me, but I am almost jokingly telling him. I finally said I will bet you a case of beer that it is illegal. he told me to shut up lol. I am chatting up the line judge on our sideline who eventually says, you know coach, I think you are right. I say back, Oh I know I am. I never did follow up with Rod on that one. That was his last season as an official as he moved to Cincy that year. I am willing to bet he remembers that as well as I do. lol

Actually, if the Team K player touched the kick before it was grounded, they didn’t execute it perfectly, since that’s against the rule. 🤣 Too many people watching those internet videos of NCAA onside kicks.

Mel Tucker better donate some of his salary to Kenneth Walker.

First time in 30 years teams are hoping to draw Pioneer

Carroll, Dwenger, and Homestead went all out by scheduling some mammoth programs. Luers loads up with 4A schools. Kudos. I agree that none of these games will come down to the end. Snider/Luers is always worth a visit though. Concordia could make it interesting for awhile vs the Legends.

Only if Boonville does something, I haven’t heard yet. I will post if I catch wind of it.

creem rises to the top

Incline Village Prep?

A game worth going to if you live in Northeast Indiana. I've got the Knights by 14.

Schuh is great offensive player and I was on board with him early, but after watching them I’m not sure he is the best player on his team. Cole Shively hell of an all-around player

In one of the craziest, hard-hitting, exciting, and just plain nuts freshman games I've ever seen, the Dragons knock off the Irish 12-10. Cathedral misses a FG as time expires. What a game!

I’ll check their PH and then oil👍. I swear to God I will

Walter has spies all over the greater Richgrove township area.

I think you may be right. I recall driving by the practice field that week and seeing Coach Lambert and his players performing a rain dance in lieu of practice.

Has zero to do with the kids. I just enjoy your excuses and theories when they lose a game.