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...
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 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...
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