AOA Sports

I have been asked to post an update on Roxie; so here goes a short update on everyone here:

Roxie had a very bad wound that required extensive wound care but is now "just tender" She can stand and take a few steps; so progress in her mobility. Otherwise she is doing well.
Shala Lamothe our oldest continues to work in Dominican Republic with her Ed.D focusing on curriculum development, school management and STEM teaching.
Shaulea Kimmel continues to excel as a social worker and is considering earning her doctorate in psychology. She continues to work with our Vets and now also works with families.
Me: I had my appendix rupture in late April; spent 14 days in the hospital and am now scheduled for surgery July 19 to remove the appendix. I have finally applied for my VA benefits and are in the process of working that out.
I wish for everyone out there the very best; I am hopeful that we can be tolerant of those who disagree with us and stop this hate, name calling that our politicians seem to think is the only way to win.

Early morning Thursday before the sun blessed us, Heaven opened up to accept Christopher Stockwell who passed away with a massive heart attack. Chris was essentially a founding member of AOA Sports coming onboard in the 1990's. He worked baseball, softball, basketball, and volleyball not only as an official but also as a scorer, clock operator, line judge, and other auxiliary positions. Just before the pandemic shut all high school sports down, Chris and I had a long talk about increasing the announcing side of AOA Sports. The pandemic hit us but when we resumed providing officials the fans were not allowed in or were allowed in reduced numbers. So we began to get a lot of calls about providing a PA announcer so that the "silent movie" of live streaming would be easier to understand. Chris wanted to end his officiating career as it started -- announcing sporting events and he did! he also grew our announcing cadre significantly. Chris was a dedicated man of high integrity who was also my friend, I will miss his inputs, his wise advise and his counsel. I can only say that Gabriel must need him more that we do. Rest in peace my friend.

We held our annual volleyball and announcer meeting on Sunday at Antonian College Prep (thanks to them for renting us their place). We went over the few high school changes: mostly dealing with beads and things in the hair and manufacturing decals on the shorts. We spent a lot of time on sportsmanship and our role. I believe that over the last few years we have become part of the problem as we have been so relaxed on bench decorum and management of those outbursts. So my talk center on getting involved early and loudly so we don't have to do it later and to let everyone know that we AOA Sports will go to bat for our refs should they find it necessary to let the coach/player eject themselves. I hope we can curb the ever-rising uncivility by taking some verbal early warnings that are loudly expressed in hopes of embarrassing them so they will control themselves. We will see!

AOA Sports will hold its annual volleyball meeting at Antonian high School on Sunday July 24th starting at 1:30 and ending around 4 PM. We will also have a short meeting with those who wish to announce sports at 4PM right after the volleyball meeting. if you would like more details, drop me an email [email protected].

AOA Sports continues to need officials for all high school sports: football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball. we are also looking for scorekeepers for volleyball and basketball, line judges for volleyball, chain crews for football and announcers for volleyball, basketball and football.
if you are interested, drop me an email at [email protected]

AOA Sports 2021-2022 season has been over for a couple of weeks and we are now working on the upcoming 2022-2023 season. As with most organizations that assign officials we are short the number of folks to cover the games we anticipate to have to schedule. However, over these last couple of years, athletic directors have figured out it is best to work with us about schedules and scheduling adjustments then to set a schedule that we simply cannot support. This new level of cooperation I think has made everyone aware of the referee shortage and the importance of what the referees bring to the table. So we are recruiting football, soccer and volleyball refs for this upcoming season. If you would like to ref, keep score, work the chain crew, announce, line judge, and/or libero track we can certainly use you! Contact me at [email protected].

It has been a while since I have posted anything here. So I thought I would give an AOA Sports update. First of all we have exceptional people working for us providing a full-range of officiating support to enhance their sports experience. This year, we have added 45 more people to our roster, we have survived the fall sports (volleyball, football and soccer). Most of our growth thus far has been in the auxiliary officials such as scorers, chain crews, clock operators, line judges, and announcers. This is a result of parents and other volunteers no longer available to help out the school athletic programs. We also added a couple more private schools to our customer base. Finally, at the beginning of this school season, we were able to give everyone a raise. As the owner, I am so proud of what these dedicated people do every day.

Today, AOA Sports worked a college basketball providing the table support. Usually we use 4 people; but today one person did not show up (not sure why yet) so we went with 3. Not unusual; in this case we had a rookie first timer shot clock operator (Renee Keller) a rusty clock operator (Troy Bull) and me who has not kept college basketball score for two years. Somehow, we pulled it off. I am so proud of these folks and their ability and willingness to adapt and to learn on the fly.

AOA Sports is entering the final couple of weeks of regular season basketball. Boy has it been a dynamic time; games are continually moved to accommodate COVID quarantine. This just causes turbulence in referee core as people make plans that get constantly changed! New way to do business I guess.
We are now getting spring sports: baseball, softball and soccer schedules. I suspect these will have less turbulence as we noted in football, we seem to have less covid sharing with outdoor sports. But, we will see.

Today, I inputted the spring college volleyball matches I have. I had already done this a couple of times; maybe this is the charm! With COVID adjustments, the schedules sure are different. We now have dual matches where the host plays the same team twice on Saturday or Friday night and then Saturday; one conference now does their matches at 1 PM on Sunday and 1 PM on Monday. Certainly new challenges in this realm of scheduling. This may be an indicator of how things will go in the future; I do believe the scheduling from the past few years will no longer be the guide for the future.

Later today, we will show up at Mission Conception Sports Park to set up our tournament staff work space and BallerTV. We are new to BallerTV so this will certainly be a learning experience for all of us. Next weekend (Saturday and Sunday) we will set up in two locations so I am hopeful we get this BallerTV thing down pat!

I hope everyone had a great and safe Christmas/New Year's holiday season. We are back into the swing of things at AOA Sports. Due to the COVID situation, our schedules remain extremely fluid with schools cancelling, adding and otherwise adjusting to their individual circumstances. I have received our spring college volleyball season and will begin to schedule this significantly reduced and modified potential match list this week. On our tournament side of things: we now have to pay close attention to the total occupancy of the facilities we rent so we have added on-line ticket sales to help us count "noses" to ensure compliance. To help off set that reduced spectator issue, we have partnered with BallerTV to live stream ALL matches (technical issues not withstanding!). Therefore, folks who cannot attend can watch from their various devices. Finally, we have added a sanitization crew to each venue to ensure the table, bench area and volleyballs are sanitized after each match. On a positive note, we have added more staff so some folks will have additional funds and we are taking these challenges head on with the most positive view of an outcome. We are good at this and the current situation simply makes us stronger and better. Welcome to the new way to run a sports management company!