It's twofold in my opinion. Parents and coaches have always been bad, but there's also a bigger sense of entitlement now than ever. I mean there are even stories about longtime high school coaches across the country who have quit because of how parents act and try to go above them to get their way. So treatment of officials definitely weighs into why roughly 80% of new officials only make it 2 years before quitting. Doesn't help that when you start you are usually doing the lowest level of basketball where the skill level isn't very good and the parents and coaches usually have the least knowledge about the rules of the game so scream about things even though they have never opened a rule book or payed attention to rule changes since their 6th grade glory days. That being said there is definitely a good 'ol boys club that you better hope you are a part of or know somebody that is a part of it if you want to climb the ladder. There are very good officials getting passed over even this year on some postseason games and even State games for guys that come nowhere near managing or calling a game as well as them all b/c they don't kiss the right person's ass so they can be in the club. Not sure how that changes b/c most that speak out against it get pushed even further back on the list. I've seen some new officials quickly escalated over other more veteran officials who are just as good or better all b/c they know the right guy. If this is happening at the high school level I guarantee it happens at the college level as well.
You hit the nail on the head with most of your points. Don't even get me started with the IHSAA and IGHSAU. Talk about a good ol' boys club. I have enough material on this to do a multi-year podcast but I'll just share a few short stories.
When they announced they were going to three-person crews, those of us who'd gone to camps and clinics and done the work really thought this was our chance to break through. Nope. All the same people kept making the state tourney, including those who hadn't even bothered to learn the new mechanics. For those who've not officiated before, three-person mechanics are VERY different from two-person. Once you learn it, it becomes very natural, but you CANNOT learn it in a real game. You have to go to camps and learn it in the off-season or you'll be thinking about where you're supposed to be and who's covering what and you won't officiate the game. I know an official -- and he's a good friend of mine who I respect tremendously -- and the FIRST three-person game he'd ever worked in his life as a class 4A semi-final in Des Moines.
There are families of officials who get to Des Moines because of their family name, and no I'm not referring to the Blum family, who are all very deserving officials. An official I trained made it to Des Moines in his third full season because he had a certain last name.
One of my partners made it to Des Moines. I went along to spend the weekend at the tournament and watch him work. They were working a boys 4A semi-final. My friend texted me from the locker room and said, "You are not going to believe this. This guy just told me he has never worked anything above Class 1A before.
Last little anecdote. I have two friends who moved out of state and started officiating elsewhere. Both good officials but neither had made it to Des Moines and one rarely got any post-season assignments at all. After three years, one of them is working deep in the state tourney in Indiana, which as y'all know is a huge basketball state. The other is working deep in the state tourney in Virginia.
Does anyone have an idea of what refs get paid per game in D1 basketball? I reffed for about 10 years 15 years ago. Mostly small college and a D2 game every now and then. Even back then I seem to remember a lot of refs making $300-$400k per year. Of course, they were working every night and racking up the frequent flier miles.
I heard it was $3,000 a game, but they have to pay for airfare, rental car, hotel, etc. out of pocket.
It's been many years since my dreams of making it were crushed but it used to be they got a game fee of $1200-1500 plus travel and per diem. Several years ago they just got a flat fee ($2000 or something) but they had to pay their own travel. Some leagues went to a promotional scale, where the R (crew chief) got paid more than the U1 who got paid more than the U2.
I had a D-1 official tells me his goal was to net a grand for each game after travel and he worked about 70 games a year. I'm sure it's increased since then but I doubt anyone is making $300-400K. I could be wrong but even if you doubled what they were making 10-12 years ago I don't think that's possible on a 70 game schedule.
Sorry for hijacking. You guys know I love to talk about this stuff.
