Taking Care Of Business
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Covering legal issues, insurance concerns, and best practices related to taxes, reports and paperwork.
What to Do If You’re Attacked
Assaults against sports officials are drawing unprecedented attention. Many states have passed legislation designed specifically to protect sports officials from being attacked. More and...
How to Write an Officiating Resumé
Nine times out of 10, a bad resumé will land in the “circular file” before the first half is read. Some bad resumés are just...
A Guide to Defending Your Officials
Every season association officers get letters, letters and more letters that may lead you to defending your officials.
“How could we have 10 fouls and...
Write Incident Reports Right
It is one of the most distasteful duties any official is required to perform: the post-ejection or incident report that must be filed by...
7 Things You Must Know About Game Contracts
By Alan Goldberger
Game contracts are a part of officiating. Every officiating assignment — at every level — represents a contract or part of a...
Don’t Officiate an “Unofficial” Game
Games can be over before they begin. Some officials fall into the trap of officiating the extra inning after a run rule, or starting...
You’re Your Own Agent
At a referee development camp that I attended the camp director began with a single question: “Who is your agent?”
After a period of silence...
Keep Expenses Simple or Be Sorry
"KISS” is an acronym for the design principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid! When talking about your officiating taxes, it should be "Keep Expenses Simple."
The KISS principle...
For the Fourth Time, That’s Enough!
Warnings — Give ‘em “the look,” “the stop sign,” the quiet word, the louder word, it doesn’t matter if you never take care of...
Step Up When a Player Goes Down
There’s a scramble for a loose ball. Before the ball is secured, the referee hears a scream. One of the players is lying on the court and...
Tort Liability for Game Officials
Protecting the safety of players is a substantial responsibility of officials. We are charged with enforcing the rules and many of those rules are...
Accepting Assignments: Dos and Don’ts
Games! We all want as many as we can possibly handle, but when it comes to accepting assignments, you can't just say yes without...
Special Circumstances That Go Beyond Any Rulebook
If you work long enough most officials will find themselves in the middle of special circumstances that go beyond any rulebook.
It’s a cold December evening but the gym...
Enforcing vs. Interpreting the Rules
Today’s high school sports officials are often caught between the “rock” of enforcing rules strictly and the “hard place” of interpreting the rules sensibly,...
Take a Peek Inside An Assigner’s Notebook
W
hile I have officiated since 1975, I have also served as a high school softball assigner and an NCAA Division III college football conference...
Your Words Have Ramifications
your words have ramifications. In England, a soccer referee was reportedly forced to quit the Premier League after he allegedly mocked a disabled man...
When Your Partner Doesn’t Show
Every time you take the floor or field as an official, drive a car, or even try to help someone put their bag in...
Assigners Can Fire You
The officiating world has no objective meter, like win-loss record, to help determine who keeps their job and who gets fired. It often takes an assigner making judgment calls...
Can Player Ejections Be Overturned by a Court?
All state high school athletic associations impose postgame disciplinary actions on student-athletes and coaches who are ejected from a contest by reason of unsporting...
Should You Sign A Post-Injury Waiver?
Consider this situation: There was a serious player injury that occurred during a game you officiated. An ambulance had to transport the player to the hospital for...
Don’t Even Let the Fight Start
When an official asks, ”What should I do if a fight breaks out?” I’m forever tempted to answer, “Dude, don’t let it happen again.”...
Safety and Warmups When a Team Arrives Late
As a sports official, you’ve been there. You’ve fought the traffic to show up to a field on a cold, rainy day, in plenty...
Essentials of Game Security
Sadly, personal safety is a concern for officials today. What’s being done to ensure game security and our welfare?
John Locke, the 17th century English philosopher and physician said, “All mankind...
Get Yourself an Injury Witness
It happens. A player has an injury in a game you’ve just officiated. You managed the players and the crowd. The trainers handled the...