I was in charge of programs for the local Optimist Club for September so decided to have a basketball theme.
First two weeks were Lindenwood women's and men's coaches and third week was a P5 ref who also coordinated officials for a D2,D3, NAIA and Juco conference. Never thought much about refs, and my memory's going, so thought I should write a couple of things down while I still can...
Ref's name is Gerry Pollard and he started off with a bunch of Bobby Knight in your face type stories which were interesting. I enjoyed knowing a bit about coordination, however.
1. He runs ref. coaching clinics which get hundreds of participants annually. They pick less than a handful to work the consortium, so most of these guys go, and go, and go again to stoke their hopes. Maybe they get high school jobs.
2. He pairs refs according to experience, so if you're just starting out, he'll get somebody to work with you with significant D2 experience and throw you in a JUCO game.
3. GLVC (the top of his consortium) games pay just under $300. Home team pays. D3/NAIA/Juco games pay upper $100's. All D1 leagues pay over a thou a game, with power 5 paying over three grand.
4. He doesn't ref at any of the levels he coordinates because of conflict of interest.
5. He coordinates men's basketball only, although the same $290+ per game ref cost is paid for women's games according to Katie Falco.
6. Katie told me that while she was in Brookings she was shocked to see the D1 ref she had used on Saturday reffing a small school high school game she was scouting in northwest Iowa, so I guess some of these people just like to ref at any level. She thought that would be tough because you have to keep rules permutations in your head while reffing at different levels.
No one else is probably interested in this, but thought I'd get it down while I still remember some of it. Should have made notes.
