Well, folks, I had another potential dilemma arise yesterday and it follows right along with what I wrote about in the last blog post. Here it is...

Last night I was scheduled to work two summer league games (a very informal league operated at a private school). The home coach, as he had done before, paid me up front before the games started. He had me call the games, partnering with one of his assistants. (Like I said, it's a very informal kind of thing!) This was not a problem for me and each of the assistants I've worked with were easy-going and accepted my offer to give them a few bits of instruction on how to do the job of officiating better.

So we have the first game and all goes fine. Then as tip time for the second game is nearing, we observe that no visiting team is showing up. As I hear a few details about the likelihood the visitors won't show up, I'm starting to wonder in my own mind if this coach is going to ask for half the payment back. I start bracing myself for that possibility, all the while hoping something different will work out. Already within the past week I lost officiating work and income from this kind of thing. Was it going to happen again??

So as I am waiting there in the gymnasium, I start thinking of what my response will be to the coach, if in fact he does ask for some money back. It first comes to my memory that by virtue of being game assignor for another league that I could have been working that league on that night and generate the same amount of income as I would where I am. Then I remember that another fellow official called me early that afternoon telling me of yet another official who had game assignments in the evening that he was trying to get covered in his place. Had I been able to do THOSE games, I would have been able to generate even more income while also having about 20 extra minutes of travel time each way. With all this now in the forefront of my head, I was ready to negotiate something if necessary. I was thinking that if asked for a "refund," that I would say that I COULD do that, but first to consider what my options were for the evening and also to consider that I was loyal to my commitment to be there.

At this point, I see the home coach huddling with his players to start play. He arranged with a couple people (not team members) to get out on the court to have enough players for 5-on-5. Now a scrimmage was in place! There was no problem working the scrimmage... I was already there on site and had been fairly compensated for my time. So all worked out and in the end the coach asked me about my availability for another date to work at their school.

As a father of 5 young children, diligently seeking to support them, I was very grateful to have the work and to see this situation work out more favorably than the last one.

As always, comments are welcome. Thanks for reading and maybe this story is useful to you in some way.