Becoming a Prepared Football Official

No matter if you are starting to officiate high school or college football, almost everyone has questions about what equipment they need. In this part two blog, we will cover bean bags, flags and game cards. I will try to give you the basics and point you in the right direction of where to get it. Like always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know here . When it comes to bean bags, what color you need depends on the level of football you are officiating. If you are going to be officiating football at the high school level, you need blue bean bags . If you will be officiating college, you need black bean bags . Bean bags can be skinny and long or just one big pouch of beans. Which type you get is completely up to the official. For every game, you should have two bean bags on you, especially if you are a back judge. For flags, high school officials use all yellow flags while college officials have the ball of their flag black . You can buy them like th...

No matter if you are starting to officiate high school or college football, almost everyone has questions about what equipment they need. I will try to give you the basics and point you in the right direction of where to get it. Like always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know here . To start, you need a bag to put all of your equipment. Many officials I have worked with use suitcases but that isn’t a requirement. Some officials use over the shoulder gym bags as well that work just fine. Whatever the bag, try to find one that has separate compartments to keep clothes and then accessories such as whistles and bean bags. Here is an example of one possibility, but any suitcase would work. Next, assuming you are not the referee, you will need a black hat with white stripes. Some of the white stripes are bigger than others. Most officials where hats that have thinner white lines, but for most high school and DIII college, it doesn’t make a huge difference. ...

If you are a new reader to Prepared Football Official’s blog, first welcome! I am glad you are here. Please take some time to read the About Me which can be found here and the Purpose page found here . You have also missed some early blog posts I posted. One of my favorite early blog posts was, “Why You Should Make the Leap and Start Officiating Football.” This post talks about many of the benefits that can come from you deciding to become an official. Some of the benefits range from communication and composure skills to test taking and teamwork. All things that can help you in all aspects of life. Take a look at this blog here . Another important early post was about one of the most important steps when becoming a football official, joining an area association. Being around other officials will not only help you learn the rules faster and better, but it will also help you get to know fellow officials so you can get some game assignments. Crews are eager to get some new blood out o...

For all of the football officials out there, I think there are 2 books that you must have. If you are officiating high school football, you need to get the NFHS “High School Football Rules Simplified and Illustrated.” This book is a wealth of knowledge! If you have read through the regular rule book before, it is very likely that sometime while reading it you dozed off. It just has that affect. Everything is so technical with all the exceptions and to follow you have to jump back and forth pages. Well this simplified and illustrated rule book is what the title says! And who doesn’t love a good picture book! This book breaks down the different rules and puts them in a way that actually makes sense. Plus, almost all of the rules come with a picture to help you visualize the rule. If you would like to look at this book or order it, it can be found here . The next book is the “Football Officiating Mechanics Illustrated” by Jeff Stern. For high school you will usually get the book for 4 a...

The CFO website , which stands for college football officiating, is a tremendous site for every official no matter if you are just starting college football, or a seasoned pro. The CFO website can also be good for high school officials if you are actively thinking about rule changes between the college and high school games. If you want a great book on the differences between college (NCAA) and high school (NFHS) I highly recommend the newest edition of “Football Rule Differences” by Paul Whiteside, George Demetriou and Jeffrey Stern. The book does a great job of breaking down all the differences in a way that makes sense. Find the most recent book here .  Anyways, back to the CFO website. They post weekly quizzes during the football season to help test your rules knowledge. They will usually post between five and ten quizzes during the offseason to keep officials fresh on the rules. But beyond the rules, they offer some of the best, or most helpful, videos out there. The vide...

Hey everyone. Thank you for reading my blog! I really hope that you have learned something about football officiating that has helped you decide to become an official or has helped you become a better official. From my blog, I really want to share the news with people about why officiating is a great idea besides just for some extra money. And in case you have not read my about me blog, there a ton of opportunities all over the country for you to get involved with officiating football! We desperately need more to make sure schools can find an adequate number of officials. If you want to read more about the benefits of football officiating, read my earlier post  here . I have already written one post about how to be better prepared for the season which you can read here . However, I really look forward to doing more posts like these. I want to share my knowledge and experiences with all of you to help you become a better prepared football official, like this blog is so wonderfully...

Something that you won’t learn from a rule book is the importance of keeping coaches and players off “the white.” The white is the sideline and it should be about 2-3 yards deep. During the play, no player, coach, or chain crew should be in the white. Some officiating crews and chain crews like to keep the chains in the white…. DON’T! I have seen too many players and officials hit the chain sticks and get hurt. There is no need for them to be that close to the field.  Nothing but the officials should be in the white during a play. If players and coaches are in the white during the play, officials can be running on the sideline at full speed and run into someone, having the potential to hurt both people. When Football officials are running, they rarely have the luxury to be watching where they are going. If they did, they may miss something. Also, when coaches and players are in the white, it makes it that much easier for them to affect the play while they should not be. Maybe a p...

For current officials, armchair officials and people who just like to keep up on the happenings of officiating, especially at the NFL level, Football Zebras is a very informational blog site. The site has tons of different areas to explore such as rules school, film study, rules and mechanics. The rules school does a great job of showing NFL rules in a fun interactive quiz way. Questions usually get posted after controversial calls on a Sunday game and it helps bring clarity for why the call was or was not made. No matter what level of official you are, it is a great way to test your rules knowledge. The film study section within Football Zebras is a great way for people to visually learn the rules. Everyone who officiates, especially football, knows the importance of watching film. You can read a rule in a rule book 100 times, and yet when you see it out on the field you may not remember those words from the rule book. Watching a video lets you process it as if you just saw t...

For those officials out there eager to learn things beyond just the rule book, blogs are a great place to look. My recommendation to you is to go to football zebras blog. Once there search for the post called “Calm Signals: the sign of under-control officiating.” This post does a great job of explaining how we as officials communicate and show we belong in the stripes on the field with the signals we give. No matter if it is an incomplete pass, fumble recovery, or penalty enforcement, we as officials must also know our signals are being watched and reflect on us. As the post points out, there are some plays that are very exciting, to the point everyone is on their feet cheering. However, the official has to have composure and take the whole play in. They can’t look excited for a team and they must show through there signals that they have been there before and are a professional. However, like the post by football zebras accurately mentions, sometimes a big signal is necessary...

1. Make sure your registration is current - whether it is for a state high school association or a college conference, make sure you have the proper registration or license to officiate that season. 2. Watch necessary videos - some levels and divisions of football will require you to watch a video that highlights new rule changes and points of emphasis for the year. Make sure to watch this early and often. (if it is actually an informative video, if not, go find a good one online. I recommend looking at the NFHS site for high school and CFO site for college.) 3. Take the test - you will almost always have at least 1 test you must take in order for you to be able to officiate that season. Open it early and print it out. Then you can slowly go through it writing things out to help you. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask, working through the test with the rule book and a fellow official can teach you a lot. 4. Review the rules - make sure you leave enough time before...

Being a new official can be a very challenging thing, just like most new things. With officiating, you may have questions about the uniform, how to get games, where best to start and questions about the rules. The best thing I can recommend for new officials is to join an association or fellow group of officials. There are associations and groups all over the country, it just takes some internet searching or asking around to find it. Once you are in this group, you will find that they most likely have meetings every so often depending on the area and number of officials around. GO TO THE MEETINGS! The best way to become a more prepared official is to immerse yourself in the environment. You will find yourself slowly learning more and more just from being around the conversations, and when you are ready, jump in and contribute to them as well. When you ask questions or try to explain things to others, you will remember that out on the field. When you are at these meetings, ther...

Deciding if you want to take the leap to officiate football and getting started in officiating can be the hardest part. When many people are deciding if they want to officiate, they think about the pressure they will be under, the people yelling at them, being busy and traveling on Fridays and Saturdays and if they can know the rules well enough to do a good job. But what people don’t think about is the good that can come from officiating. I am here to help show you the positives of officiating and help encourage you to take the leap and decide to officiate football, or decide it is something you are going to continue if you are already starting. Besides the fact that for the amount of time you actually work a game you get paid very well, there are many other benefits. Being an official will undoubtedly help you develop many skills such as communication, composure, test taking skills, teamwork and keep you in shape! Knowing that you will have to be keeping up with very fast studen...

My name is Bill and I am a senior in College. I have been officiating football now for 6 years. In those six years, I have officiated pee-wee, JV high school, varsity high school, JV College, and varsity college football. Beyond my personal experience of officiating, my dad has also been an official for much longer than I have been alive. As a kid growing up, I would always watch my dad's football games on TV and talk to him after the game. My dad has taught me more things about officiating than I may have learned in a whole career of officiating football. However, many new officials do not have the experience of growing up around officiating.  Being a current football official who started very young, I understand first-hand what it can be like to start something new that you have never done before. Especially as an official where you have many eyes constantly watching and waiting for you to make a mistake. I have seen many young officials get scared off from pursuing officia...