Yeah I’m really young compared to what most people think of when someone says “young up and comer”. It was really out of the blue. The assignor for our chapter texted me during class at like 8:00 in the morning (I didn’t even have his number in my phone, but he had seen me at ODP before and was impressed) asking me to come watch games at the men’s indoor league he assigns to get used to the environment so I could work my way up to reffing there. My friend (who is of a similar age, currently in ECSR and works as a timekeeper at the facility) was joining the chapter and so he figured “why not have 2 young guys join?”. So hopefully I’m all good to go and I’ll pass both tests to get my patch. Very exciting stuff!
Do you even have to pass a test to get a college patch? I think the only test you need to take is if you want to do NCAA playoff games.
Update: Passed the NISOA written test no problem, on to the fitness test this Saturday which I’m currently training for.
"a college patch." Which patch is that? NISOA? They have their written test. Been so long since I joined, I don't know if they now require it to join or not. I suspect not or, at least, it may be variable whether a particular chapter actually requires it or not. A patch for a particular conference, like ACC or Pac-12? No. If the conference assignor wants you to do their games, you get a badge from them. You do not have to belong to NISOA to do college games. It's up to the conference assignor. A NCAA badge, i.e. for playoff games? Then you have to take the NCAA written test and be assigned by one of the four regional assignors of NCAA playoff games. You do not have to be a member of NISOA, however, to be chosen. One of the assignors has even said that her contract with the NCAA for post season assigning specifically says that she cannot ask a referee whether they belong to "any other organization." I think they're thinking about NISOA, not the Knights of Columbus. At one time, the NCAA rules included a paragraph that said that, in the case of referee assault, the referee was to notify their NISOA regional representative. That got removed from the rules one year but the removal was never mentioned as being a rule change.