Covid Effect on Official Availability

[Covid 22]

So halfway through the season, what has been the impact of Covid on the number of officials available?  With the start of the big schools, has there been a shortage?

I talked to a friend in the Austin chapter and he was sent to a single sub-varsity game on Thursday in Cuero.  The officials came from Austin, Marble Falls and Killeen.  Killeen is a 161 mile jaunt one way.   

Is this an indication that there is a shortage now that all schools are playing?   Just wondering.

[ElvisLives]

Yes, the COVID has impacted scheduling, mostly due to diagnoses of folks already scheduled, and finding appropriate replacements sometimes causes a bit of a 'scramble' to get those spots filled. Yes, it has created some crews of 4, rather than 5, in some cases. But, this has been mitigated some, by the schedule changes when a few games have been canceled, freeing up those individuals.
Yeah, it has been a different challenge, but, from what I can tell, we're gettin' the job done.
Determining district champs, etc., will probably be a big problem, but it ain't our problem.
 

[dammitbobby]

We're seeing a lot more 3 man crews, we just don't have the number of officials available this year.  I'm not aware of any in our chapter testing positive and being unavailable, just a generalized shortage. 

[JasonTX]

Our challenge has been the schedule changes.  One school was originally scheduled to play an away game outside of our coverage area but it got cancelled and they picked up a home game.  We were unable to add the game but it wasn't Covid related as we wouldn't have been able to cover it any other year due to the number of games we already had so a neighboring chapter picked it up.  Then we got 2 more cancelations so I put most of those officials on other games as 7 man crews.  Now we have a district in 2 weeks will play on a Thursday, then the next week a Wednesday, and the final week they will have the option to play on a Monday with Saturday being available for any game that had to be postponed.  One of our schools picked up a game with someone on the other side of the state so they are meeting halfway and we will be traveling there.  You can read a story on the TASO newsletter from last week at the work done from another chapter up north.  Pretty amazing customer service. 

[Birddog]

I talked to a friend in the Austin chapter and he was sent to a single sub-varsity game on Thursday in Cuero.  The officials came from Austin, Marble Falls and Killeen.  Killeen is a 161 mile jaunt one way.   

Spoke to a transfer to Austin who said he can't get Sub Varsity assignments because they are all full and self assigned before the season.

[dammitbobby]

There's a East Texas District that just moved to a 6-day interval for games, to allow time at the end of the season if necessary for schedule flexing.  Game on Friday, next week on Thursday, next week on Wednesday, etc.

[JDM]

Spoke to a transfer to Austin who said he can't get Sub Varsity assignments because they are all full and self assigned before the season.

Really???! I wasn't privy to the fact that there's no shortage in the Austin Chapter. Send him down to Houston. We'll put him to work!