tlaporta@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

Volleyball officials have boycotted the Rockey Mountain Athletic Conference going into this 2012 season.

Not unlike the dispute NFL officials are having with their league, RMAC refs are sitting out volleyball games due to compensation.

RMAC President J.R. Smith explained that RMAC officials are offered their pick of games and tournaments and at the start of the 2012 season, and most officials have refused to work RMAC events.

The officials want more money, but the RMAC froze pay for officials for three years at $90 a match.  The strike is over the pay rate, and the conference isn’t ready to make a decision regarding the pay rate until the RMAC holds its annual conference meetings in October.

Head volleyball coach Dave Fleming offered insight on the unusual situation.

“I can understand both sides,” Fleming said. “The refs haven’t seen a raise in a long time. They deserve one. And the conference office is trying to keep costs down.”

Fleming added that the timing of the strike was tough, coming about a week before the season started. He also said the refs made one mistake when it came to their allies in the strike with the RMAC.

“The refs didn’t use their biggest advocates: the coaches,” Fleming said. “The RMAC coaches had no idea it was an issue and as a group I think we could have helped solve this before it got to this point.”

Until the meetings in October, replacement refs and the few RMAC refs that have returned will officiate the remainder of this season’s matches.