JustRules

Yes. There was an all-conference offensive lineman from Franklin College who officiated the past 2 years. He would work a HS game on Friday night and play his college game the next day. I talked with a friend who worked a scrimmage last night with a guy who will be a senior player at Marian. The travel for D1/D2 would normally make it hard for them to work Friday nights, and I don't know what limitations they would have to earn money like this while under scholarship. I"m thinking it could be OK. But D3/NAIA doesn't appear to be a problem.

My guess is they would keep classifications and sectionals with byes as necessary to account for teams missing. Obviously some sectionals would have more than others. Very possible there are no games in week 1 of a sectional.

I would guess if you are in a high risk group you probably don't want to on the chain crew. You don't really talk to anyone but each other, but you would be near the coaches and players on the sideline much of the game. One alternative they could consider is using extra pylons to mark the line to gain so everyone can see it. Two people on the chain crew could place the pylons and then get away from the team box. This would reduce the amount of time they are in close proximity to others and also reduce the number of people required to do the job. Most crews use a mechanic where every new series starts on the back of a line. That way we can use the lines on the field rather than an arbitrary placement of a stake on the sideline. The stakes mostly serve as reminders of where the line to gain is located. This doesn't help on fields where they don't mark every yard line or if a series has to start between the yard lines.

Just volume. It wasn't nearly as loud. For some reason the sound doesn't carry as much.

From what I've heard there is a huge demand for electric whistles so getting one may be difficult. From what I've heard they sound similar, but they aren't as loud from a distance.

A D1 friend of mine in North Carolina did a sound test with the one he got. When it was close to the camera the standard whistle and electronic whistle were fairly similar. As he moved away from the camera (up to 20 or 30 yards), there was a noticeable difference. It will be interesting to see how they work in reality.

We don't do that very often. I have heard of crews who take that approach, but I don't feel it's very effective. You don't get to know ADs and coaches and get multiple votes because you have worked a lot of different schools over the years. The staff of the school where you worked one time 5 years prior may not even be there any longer. And they are much less likely to remember if you if you only worked there once. The crews who often advance are those who work other sports or coach other sports or played college sports in Indiana with a lot of people who are not athletics directors or coaches and it usually takes a combination of all those things. The crews who commonly advance far because of a broader vote number are getting 80-100 votes or more while most crews only get 20-30. You don't get 80-100 votes because you mix up your schedule every year. As for working with a new AD/school, I personally wouldn't worry about it any more this year than any other year. If it was a new school to us I would be more thorough in my discussion about our locker room situation, assistance to and from the field, assistance with our individual water situations, their plans for ball boy management. I expect most will be fine and if they aren't I would address it with them before we ever set foot on the school grounds. Most do a pretty good job, and I expect they will continue to do a good job.

Robert attended our local association meeting last night and as of Wednesday evening around 8:00pm all scrimmages and games are on scheduled. That could definitely change though. It's very possible we could be mixing and matching crews this year and traveling all over the place. A part of that does sound fun to me for one season.

If there is football I expect schedules will be modified week by week. Week 2 a school will cancel their season due to health concerns. Week 4 and 5 4 teams will have to forfeit because they have too many key players out. On Sunday teams who don't have an opponent the following week will pair up to play. They'll play either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday depending on when they can get officials. There could be a similar issue with officials cancelling before the season or losing games throughout the season.

Yes for the most part it would be considered an outdoor public space. Aspects that would not apply: team and officials locker rooms and press box.

I'm not sure if this is what they are thinking, but a possible explanation is they have the ability to suspend operations without disrupting things significantly. It would be much more disruptive to take a week off during the season. I don't believe every team that has positive tests are suspending operations. They are just the ones we hear the most about. We could come out of this with examples of different approaches and those learnings could be applied to the regular season. All of this is pure speculation on my part so don't take it as fact or inside knowledge that I have.

Most of the games I've worked over 20 years can spread out fans in the stands or around the field with little issue. There are exceptions, but most would be fine. Some schools may want to set up new bleachers around the field for additional seating but if you let people spread out around the fence standing/sitting with groups of people they know, most probably wouldn't have to reject any fans. I think you'll see some people self opt-out attending so normal crowds should be smaller to start. I can also understand though if schools don't want the headache of trying to enforce distancing for people who don't want to cooperate.

My preference is school is back in person as much as possible, but I advocate 100% that people who are immune-compromised and especially those who choose to help with the eLearning aspect should not have their employment affected at all.

If they can't provide you with a social distancing option that's acceptable then I would suggest arriving dressed. There aren't many HS locker room I've been in where we couldn't spread out sufficiently.

I looked it up and found data for 2017. Warren was 73.2% F&R and Wayne was 73.6%. Decatur, Pike, and Lawrence were in the 60%, Washington was 55% and Franklin was 37%. Perry's information wasn't there for some reason. These were about what I expected. There are larger lower income pockets in Warren and Wayne. This doesn't show the higher extremes though. Franklin also struggles a little due to the lack of corporate taxes paid there. It is largely residential.

That's an interest stat. I would never have guessed Franklin Township is the most affluent. Are you basing it on free and reduced lunch percentages? If true it's only because they don't have as much of the lower extremes as the other districts. Washington and Lawrence definitely have the most affluent areas of Marion County, but they also have some of the poorest.

Both Lawrence Township and Washington Township and to a lesser extent Pike Township have a broad mix of students with a large number at both extremes. Lawrence has students from around Geist as well as students around 38th and Post, one of the poorest areas of the city. The northern part of Washington Township and the old money of Meridian Kessler that feeds into it are very affluent, but they also reach around Broad Ripple down to 46th and Emerson and 38th and Kessler. Wayne and Warren are very similar but with less of the affluence. Decatur is working middle class and Perry/Franklin both have a good mix but less extremes. IMHO they will all struggle at some level though with eLearning because a large percentage either have both parents working, a single parent, or financial limitations that make eLearning more difficult.

I agree with Bob. If there are games I expect there will be a fair number of cancellations. It could be a scramble rescheduling games and then finding officials. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Centralized assigning system put in place if that happened.

I would think the teacher to teacher spread would be easier to manage though. They will generally be in their own room most of the time. If they are in a group it could be smaller groups with everyone masked. That would make each instance more similar to what you would have in a retail establishment or grocery story. Teachers concerns are not without merit. Some of them though tare no different than other workers who are asked to go back to work in risky situations. I would hope schools could accommodate those who are more at risk (have them focus on the eLearning activities) and have those who are comfortable go back to the classroom. There is no easy answer here, and I wish everyone would respect other people's opinions.

They are the ones most likely at risk. That's understandable. There are a lot of studies out there, but the one I believe says students (especially elementary) are very unlikely to contract and/or spread the disease especially to adults. But there is still a risk between the adult staff.

Classes exist for post-season. It has not relevance for the regular season. Schedule who you want to play to provide your student athletes the best opportunity to participate and compete.

That's a completely separate discussion. I don't see a reason why the worst team in 3A has to be better than the best team in 2A. That's not true in NCAA football either. There are D3 teams that can beat D2 and FCS teams. There are D2 teams that can beat G5 and possibly the bottom of FBS. There are several FCS teams that can beat G5 and some P5 schools. NAIA generally falls between D2 and D3 and the same applies there. Enrollment is a good place to start with classification, because it's an easily measurable number and generally equates to likely ability. The Success Factor helps to provide some balance. Ultimately high school sports are about team building, leadership skills, physical activity, and education. Along the way they get to compete and try to win championships, but that's not the only goal.

I believe the charts are based on what was reported. I wish the reporters would have dug in deeper. My guess is these particular agencies mostly just reported positive cases and not just tests. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt to say it wasn't intentional. So if they reported 98% positive and 521 cases, but are now saying they only had a 9.4% positive rate, they probably mis-reported the total number tested. If that's true the case numbers are still accurate the percentage positive is off. The other possibility is the number tested accidentally also got fed to into the positive column. If that's true then the number of cases will be lower. There is a common term in data analysis...garbage in garbage out. Big data is complicated and accurately reporting on it is complicated. This is a glaring example of that. Things get classified wrong, queries are inaccurate, human error if forms are being completed manually. Just because the numbers are wrong doesn't mean it was intentional. Investigate and determine the cause. My guess is ultimately this was a system or process issue and not some intent to mislead.

There is a lot of crossover in quality of teams, especially in 4A and below. There are 1A schools that are better than 4A schools so it's entirely possible they could play each other and compete. That's completely different than the top of each class playing each other. And even then there isn't always a huge difference.

All great points Bobref! Recent teaching for Rs though is to let the QB cross in front of you but keep a distance behind him. If he's scrambled outside of you the likelihood of him to end up in a set passing position and ruling that way on pass/fumble is extremely unlikely. It's still important for you to keep the play boxed in properly and not get stuck on the sideline during the play. Some states have gone to putting the R on the right side of the QB regardless of throwing arm for consistency. This has trickled down from NCAA mechanics. They also teach a good when-in-doubt on these. If the defender hits from behind, it's a fumble. If the defender hits from the front it's a pass. The more I watch video the more those are accurate when it's not obvious in real time.