[EricH]

Originally Posted by P.J.

I'll take this one.

Yes, referees always seem to be in high demand. As Ike said, alumni are a great resource to pull from. Speaking as an alum turned referee (turned unofficial referee recruiter and trainer), it's great to have people familiar with how FRC games typically work transition to reffing. It's much easier to train them than, say, a parent from a team.

I've noticed the "best" alumni referees seem to have either been on drive team or the head scouts on their former teams. These are the positions that usually know the games and rules the best.

It's a high pressure job, but you also get the "best seat in the house" as one of my former head referees used to say. I highly recommend it for alumni who want to remain involved in first without necessarily mentoring a team.

Ditto this. The other good element for a ref is practice at offseasons. It'll at least give you a feel for how the game is played as a ref, even though it'll change before the next year.

As far as "in high demand"... can I double that? I'd like to not end up in stripes at 4 events again next year (two of them I wasn't planning on that...). (Though I've got a funny feeling that I'll be recruited to do just that...)