Becoming a Prepared Football Official

For this third and final equipment post, I will be helping you know what clothes you need for your uniform to officiate football. I saved this for last since many times, people have the most questions on this part. However, before I get going, I wanted to tell everyone that earlier I strongly recommended you join your area officials association, you can read that post here . If you do, many times people have extra clothes or equipment they are giving away for free! Take advantage of that as just another reason to go to an association meeting. To start, you need some shoes. There are many out there and all different brands. Try to find a store in your area that sells them and try some on to see which are most comfortable to you. Also talk to other officials to see what their favorites are. With your shoes, make sure you have black socks. You will also need officiating pants. These are black with a white stripe down the side. College and High school officials where the same pant...

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. ...