First Blog

I don't want to come out and say it, but you could call me a young guy. I started officiating when I was 14 and came to realize this high school job that I chose would not be an easy one... I remember like it was yesterday....

When I was in 6th grade I became a scorekeeper for a local gym basketball league that had both Men and Women's basketball at night. $6.50 an hour and I was off and running. This gym hired the local high school association to officiate and I always made sure the refs on my court knew the rule about Technical fouls, automatic 2 points and the ball. Now as I grew older my boss gave me the newsletter that got me started in officiating. I called the local association membership chair and then met the apprentice chair at the first training session. Nice guy, but heck I was the youngest guy there by 25 or 30 years. This is where the looks first started and the questions of why I was there came.

Well a couple months later I emerged ready for my first youth games. It was at our local community college that holds youth tournaments regularly. I was working two games Thanksgiving day.... One with a nice older guy and the other with a rookie too. I put on my uniform that day and had my parents drive me over. There I go; on the court, for the very first time. I don't remember much about these games expect how much harder it was to ref these games then it looked. I blew some calls, got some stares, but held my ground.

I am about to start my fourth year of calling games, I work for both the high school boys and girls associations here and am now varsity level in both groups which is a big deal in a large city and considering the amount of years I have worked and my age, it is a great honor. It's time to get a blog after other officials got them as a way to track my games and see what I need to work on.