I was living at home and going to college nearby. I wasn't working at the time though I spent a great deal of time as a volunteer basketball coach for my grammar school. Since I was coaching, doing officiating made a lot of sense. I could earn a bit of money during the time I was not coaching.
I kept officiating youth basketball for many years but I found myself getting bored. The games felt repetitive and I had stagnated a bit. In was in the Fall of 2002 that I joined my local high school officiating group.
Jumping into high school games was a change. Though I thought I was a good official, I found that I had a lot to learn. While it has taken me a lot of years to feel comfortable, I found that the learning experience renewed my enthusiasm as the youth level as well.
Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of roadblocks with my high school officiating. For one, my work schedule never really allowed me to officiate as many high school games as I wanted to. Yet despite the roadblocks, I had some good years where I managed to work some playoff games. While there are many who aspire higher, I am happy to have gotten a chance to work in the playoffs. In an ideal world, I would like to get a chance to work any games I wanted to and not worry about work. But the world is not always ideal.
Last year was a bit of a transition. I had some things I wanted to take care of so I took the year off from high school officiating. I made a decision this past May to return to high school officiating. Though I decided to return, I made a quiet decision to reduce my schedule.
There were many reasons for this. One was that I was quite settled in my job. Leaving work early to officiated 4 PM games were just difficult in my position. In years past, I would MAKE every effort to cut out of work to go officiate. I wouldn't accept every early game but i would take a few and decline others just so I could go work.
However, I no longer could leave early consistently. I have a sales team I need to support. While they don't need me every day, lots of things come up at the last moment. I had to set the priority that my job comes first and my hobbies come second.
But beyond the work situation, I also had been scaling back officiating overall the past few years. Many times, officiating would get in the way of meeting up with friends or even just playing basketball. I told myself that my personal life was more important than being an official.
Thus as I enter the 2012-2012 high school season, my priority is to enjoy the games (even if they are only a limited number) I do get. I'm not concerned about the quality or the level of the game. In the past, I was concerned about the quality of the games I was getting because I hoped I could work my way up. These days, I'm going to enjoy being at the gym, working with my partner, and a chance to get some exercise.
No comments:
Post a Comment