Becoming a Prepared Football Official

Just like many other things in life that include groups, an officiating crew must have communication and comradery to be effective. Football officiating crews need to work well together if they want the season to be successful. Here are some ways to help your crew be successful. If you have and comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to me here . The first thing Football officiating crews need to do is get together before the season. Make sure everyone knows each other. Just spending some time together and learning things about everyone will make a huge difference when working together. Talk mechanics and philosophies together. There are many different ways to do things in football officiating. There needs to be a time that the crew talks mechanics through. What hand signals are you going to use? How are you going to handle spots on long passes and runs? What communication do crew members want throughout the game? Make sure you know all of this before the first ga...

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...

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...