Taking Care Of Business
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Covering legal issues, insurance concerns, and best practices related to taxes, reports and paperwork.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
What is an Oral Contract?
The difference between an oral contract and a written contract is obviously the writing. A contract is simply an offer accepted by another party with the parties exchanging something...
What Do You Have to Hide?
Knock, knock. “Hello, Mr. Smith. We’re with the state association. We’re conducting a little check of all our registered officials. You don’t mind if...
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...
Let the Media Handle the Postgame Commentary
When it comes to officials and the media, it might have been legendary major league umpire Bill Klem who said it best. “I don’t...
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...
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 for 22 years as a high school softball assigner and 14 years as an...
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...
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...
Negotiating Officials’ Pay
A contract is a contract. However, sometimes the parties to a contract want to change the terms. Often leagues will renegotiate officials' pay for games each year with...
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.”...
Good Reports Earn You Respect
It’s a good idea to send misconduct reports — sometimes referred to as incident reports — to proper authorities, even if it’s not required....
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...
Extreme Behavior Demands Ending Games Early
Legal issues for officials take many forms. Some are obvious. Others not so much. It’s easy to see how injuries to players can be precipitated by...
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...
Handling an Accident and Insurance from Game Travel
Sometimes the riskiest part about being a sports official is getting to and from the game. Sure, no official likes the abuse we often...
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...
