UIL/TASO: UIL agrees to drop Nov 1st deadline

[YTBulldogs]

TASO officials will not have to be registered by Nov 1st with the UIL. Today, in Federal Court, UIL agreed to drop it's demand that sports officials (football and volleyball) be registered by Nov 1st to be eligible to officiate high school athletic contests.

Federal Judge Lee Yeakel set a Nov 10th hearing on TASO's lawsuit, promising to have a ruling by Dec. 1st.

[TexMike]

Not a good day for the UIL's "leader" of officiating as the federal judge says he is "helplessly childish"

Texas Tribune update:

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/university-of-texas-system/judge-delays-deciding-on-referee-lockout/

Judge Delays Deciding on Referee Lockout
by Julian Aguilar
October 20, 2010
A federal judge on Wednesday declined to rule on a request for an injunction filed by a group of high school sports officials seeking to prevent what they call a government takeover of an independent contracting agency.

The Texas Association of Sport Officials, or TASO, filed suit against the University Interscholastic League after the latter amended its rules to make registration with the agency mandatory for all high school sports officials seeking to officiate athletic contests under its purview. The officials were given a November 1 deadline to comply, which some referees said was an attempt at strong-arming them to register or risk losing high-profile assignments the last week of the high school football season and during the playoffs. The UIL is represented by the Texas Attorney General’s office

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel delayed ruling on the injunction, and instead raised the issue of whether or not the federal courts had the jurisdiction to preside over the case.

“However I rule I am going to create chaos. The question is do I grant chaos with or without jurisdiction,” said Yeakel.

After more than five hours both sides came to agreement where the attorney general’s office will file a motion for dismissal based on jurisdiction by Oct. 29. TASO has until Nov. 8 to respond and a hearing that will ultimately decide the issue is scheduled Nov. 10. If the injunction is denied the Nov. 1 registration deadline is pushed back to Dec. 1

When asked why the judge brought up the issue over jurisdiction, TASO attorney Matthew Jones said it was a “good question.”

“My thoughts are the judge was inclined to grant it, he just wanted to be sure he had the jurisdiction to do so,” he said. Attorneys with the Texas Attorney General’s office declined to comment outside of the courtroom.

After the rule change TASO alleged in court filings that the UIL was attempting to “take over, tax, oversee and regulate the occupation of sports officiating in the State of Texas” outside of its authority and in violation of the law. The UIL responded that the move is aimed at streamlining communication with the state’s officials and “to complete a short ‘officials compliance program’ to see to it that they have at least working knowledge of the constitution and the contest rules within the UIL.”

The ruling on Wednesday was anti-climactic after testimony in court that alleged the UIL was purposely withholding information from TASO — specifically new rule books for two varsity sports and an incident report following the death of an athlete this year — until after Wednesday's hearing. The testimony even prompted Yeakel to say the UIL’s actions “smacked to [him] of being almost helplessly childish.”

After the decision Jones said it was “like waiting all day for a punt.”

[zebrablue2]

:clap:

[YTBulldogs]

Judge should force both sides to talk between themselves to resolve this issue by the end of the year.

Both sides has had fault in the past. TASO finally has things straightened out from past leaders of their organization, and UIL currently has some leaders just wanting total control and of course the money the officials would generate.

As long as TASO continues to run it's organization as it has for the past year or so, it should be a stand alone aspect of High School sports, in the name of game fairness.

[Txbroadcaster]

seems the big issue is the UIL wanting money from officals..so does the TASO not charge a fee to be a member?

[YTBulldogs]

Yes, we do pay a yearly dues to TASO.

[TexMike]

Yes there is a fee. And that is one of our issues. If guys have to start paying UIL also, chances are most will quit paying TASO and our organization will cease to exist. TASO already has the infrastructure, knowledge, and experience to to what is most needed and that is train officials. UIL has nothing except their relationship with the National federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). And that may be fine for the sports the use NFHS rules and officiating procedures. Football uses NCAA rules and mechanics.

[Snotbubbles]

There is a reason why Texas Football is the best in the country. Why would the UIL want to change anything?

As I understand, most of TASO issue's in the past was with other sports. Not football. Why don't the UIL take those sports over, if that's where the troubles were, and leave the "king" football---alone? Texas Football income, is what supports all the other high school sports for schools.

I'd hate to have the same style of football officiaiting in Texas like Delaware has.

TxMike, what did TASO do wrong to get the UIL interested in taking over the officiating in the first place?

[Snotbubbles]

Where did Mike go? He seems to know all the insights here.

[TexMike]

It is hard to say what TASO did wrong. There is the UIL explanation and then there is the truth. unfortunately, i am not sure anyone really knows the truth. The stated UIL reasons were:
1 - Some chapters (baseball ones and not even all of them) did not want to accept the UIL-established pay scale. They had a "gentleman's agreement' with the schools they serviced to pay more. When the schools tried to use the UIL scale those chapters threatened to "strike".
2- Some sports have "many" ejections of coaches (basketball, soiftball, baseball) When a coach gets ejected they have to go to Austin to answer to the UIL. Folks in those sports were looking for ways to get officials less likely to eject them. One thought was put them under UIL and make THEM report to Austin also.
3 -UIL wants to know who is officiating their games, supposedly for background check purposes.

Unstated but believed part of this:
4 - There was a long-standing "Peyton Place" within basketball officiating circles going back to a former TASO Executive Director (basketball guy) who did not get along with some other TASO basketball guys around the state. Those guys wanted to leave TASO as they were not happy he got the job (a paid gig). The UIL honcho (Dr B) is a b-ball guy and he weighed in on the side of those who wanted out of TASO.
5 - There are 15000 (3 zeros) HS officials among all the sports in Texas. If UIL charged $50 per official to register, they would get $750,000. They would pay less than $5 per person for the background check, give each person a $5 rulebook, and pocket the rest. Do the math.
6- Dr B (the head of UIL) wants to put all officials in Texas under the National Fed of State HS Assns (NFHS). Most all HS sports are played under NFHS rules (except football). If Dr B could eeliver 15000 new registrants to the NFHS, that would make him a major player in that outfit and position him for a top leadership role in that group. Personally i am not so sure about this alleged reason as I doubt they would pay the over $200,000 annual salary he gets from UIL.

[Snotbubbles]

Thanks Mike. Wow. I see the TASO (football atleast) side now. UIL should take over those sports that had issues then, not the one sport that followed UIL guidelines, football.

Hate to see the UIL screw up Texas Football.