Congrats to the Unit Success

The Foothill-Citrus Unit has sent 7 officials to the Southern Section CIF Finals for the first time.
The most in unit history.

Congrats to Ray Thompson, Bill Gayler, Alex Carroll, Otis Stokes, Minnie Caluag, Bob Holland, Jennifer Veal who will work as officials and Aaron Schuman as an alternate.

Add the 7 Teams we have in Finals and the Foothill-Citrus Unit has a lot to be thankful for this year.

A special congrats to triple threat Mel Sims. Mel has his team in the finals, worked as an official and served on the board. Good luck coach.

Let's Go Camping!

Here are a few camps that are available to you as officials. More information can be found on-line. Good Luck to all those who attend a camp this summer.

"Be A Lead" June 20th-22nd at UC Irvine. Register by April 5th-$185.00 after that $225.00
More Info at www.bealead.com (Martin Cota)

"Day of Game" 3 camps, June 14-15th and June 21-22nd at APU-$190 by May 15th or
July 19-20 at Concordia University (Irvine), $190.00 by May 15th.
More Info at www.dayofgame.com (Rich Kollen)

"Up Close and Personal" Friday April 18 or 19 or 20th Lynwood HS (Lynwood). $200.00 by April 10th , $250 after April 10th. D. DiCamillo has the application. Contact him via email for an application. (Bobby Mozee & Bill Mallory)

Playoffs-Just some stats, notes and a comment

We used a different method to select the playoff officials this year and we believe it was very well done, by all. All includes the VQ officials and the committee.


96% of our VQ officials submitted nominations. Of those 22 officials submitted fewer than 10 names.

Only 2 officials did not receive any nominations, 4 received only 1 nomination and 3 received only 2. The highest individual total for any 1 official was 20 and 31 officials received 10 or more nominations.

Six NVQ officials received nominations including a first year official who received 2 nominations. None were considered.

We considered 61 names for the total playoff list. Two did not submit, 3 are not eligible (transfer/dual), 2 who did not receive any nominations, 2 have removed themselves from the list, 1 did not qualify (10 games), others did not work HS basketball.

The committee met on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at APU beginning at apx. 8:45 and ending 11:50.

The playoff bucket range was set at 100%-41% of partners nominated (42 officials). 2 Officials received nominations from 100% of their partners. There was no statistical advantage to the number of partners or number of nominations to being in the bucket.

Officials were then ranked by the committee from 1-42. All but three rankings were discussed. We also selected three 3-person crews for CIF.

We added an alternate list for CIF because the first and second rounds still has people working college basketball and we need to have a few more names just in case we needed an official or two. The Alternate range was 37%-27% (11 officials). None were used.

Regardless of the outcome all but a few officials understood and or accepted the outcome. I, as the IC, was pleased with the entire process.

Next season in here already

For many of us the season was over about two weeks ago. And for many of us we need to begin to train now, yes now. The one thing we can count on as a high school official is the players age will stay the same. The players are about 14-18 years old, some younger, some older.

We as officials are getting older every year. In fact I don't think that we have any officials who are younger than 20 years old. That means most of us are in our 30's, 40's or 50's, the players aren't.

Players today are playing year round, their coached year round and the HS aged player is better than they were when most of us played. Their better trained, stronger, quicker and play faster.

So if you want to be in position to see plays you need to be as fit, strong and fast as you can be. So the older you are the sooner you need to start. If you need to lose some weight, start today.

Lastly, we talk a lot about being professional. Part of being professional is appearance, fitness and the ability to run in order to see the whole play correctly. Be a professional, everyone involved is counting on you.

Thanks to All

Here's to all of you who helped make this season a good one for me.

First, thank you to the board for the opportunity to lead the group. I truly appreciate your support in making a change.

Thank you to Otis. Who demonstrates tough leadership, not everyone can lead through change.

Thanks to all the instructors and observers who helped make a difference.

Thanks to Guy and JT for their direction and leadership. JT is a great teacher and Guy did a great job getting officials seen and evaluated.

Thanks to all the officials who bought in and raised their game. You've raised the bar for next season.

A special thank you to all the coaches who provided input and video of their teams. It made us more aware of things we can improve.

And lastly, thanks to all my partners who treated me like an official and not the IC when we worked games.

Here's where you can find out the latest!

Welcome to the Unofficial F-C Basketball Officials blog. You can find out information about meetings, instruction, and who is doing what in our unit right here.

Unofficial means that the unit has not sanctioned it.

Dennis DiCamillo is your moderator.