Any lawyer worth his salt is going to tell you that it is better to negotiate out of court than to spend time and money going back and forth, filing, appealing, over and over. I would believe Mr. Schumann would agree.
UIL knows that TASO has footing with their lawsuit, so they need to listen. They also are working on a very tight budget, obviously with all those high paid directors, so they should be looking for a way to mitigate lawyer's expenses. My main issue with any negotiation between TASO and UIL is that it must be in a contract. The UIL must not pull the Trojan horse routine. I know Mike is smart enough to not let this happen. They may think they can do a bait and switch and get what they want in the end, the death of TASO and an organization that works for officials first.
Another alternative is that TASO winds up being a football only entity, let the other sports go to the UIL. Football, as the UIL and superintendents will agree, is not the problem. It is all the other sports that seem to be jealous of the fees officials collect. That is fixed by either not doing anything (which got us where we are), raising fees for other sports, or taking football to a flat fee. I must say, I could care less how much a baseball umpire makes doing a game when there are 12 people in the stands. They deserve a fair fee, but they are not going to be able to negotiate the same as what football officials get when the same school gets 8,000 to their games every Friday night.
An agreeable scenario would be for TASO to remain as a separate entity, but work more closely with the UIL. TASO could supply all training as they have in the past. That's what they are good at. UIL could do the registration (for a very minimal fee) that simply means that an official is TASO certified and has passed a background check. For that matter, UIL can keep the points and do the administrative part, they are probably better at that anyway. TASO has historically done an abysmal job of keeping an accurate database. (Partially in their defense, they can only keep records that they have received and some chapters are terrible at keeping and reporting data on their members). This can work, but a major obstacle is TT. There are not many football guys willing to work with that guy, with his posturing, yelling and general inability to bring a consensus (sounds like a jr high coach?). I doubt he could sell water to someone in the Mojave desert without POURING someone off.
One thing we all have to remember about the fee structure for football, anything the UIL wants, they get. They wanted registration for officials, and even after all of our collective efforts to keep that from happening, the legislative council passed it unanimously. If they want to go to a flat fee for the football, it would be nothing more than the stroke of a pen for Dr. B. He knows it, and we need to realize it. Let's work together, and we can make it a better organization, keep a portion of gate receipts in the fee structure, and ensure that we keep using NCAA rules (the coaches would raise hell if UIL tried to go to NF). If the UIL wants all sports other than football, as far as I'm concerned, they can have them. Those other sports need to get their feces coagulated and get their members to fully support TASO.
