Last weeks Football Officials Camp at the University of Nevada, Reno was outstanding. I learned more in three days than I have in the past five years. Several major personalities in Football Officiating were on staff as mentors and coaches. The staff-to-official ratio was 3:1. It was as close to one-on-one mentoring as you can get. And these guys were not just anybody. They were somebodies representing the NFL, Big-12, PAC-10, MWC, SEC, ACC, WAC, and a few other conferences. Some names you may recognize include; Jon Bible, Red Cashion, Jerry Markbreit, Carl Cheffers, Rogers Redding, Ken Rivera, Dan Romeo, Dave Warden, Doug Rhoads, Walt Anderson, Ron Capra, to name a few.
So, what happens at one of these camps besides meeting a bunch of great people, having a lot of fun, and enjoying four days of football away from your normal life? This alone is worth the cost, but what really happens at this camp is you work. A lot. From 6:30 AM to about 8:30 PM. Long ass days, but so much better than your day job. You get very tired, but its a 'good' tired.
The Officials Camp is concurrent with a player Football Camp. There must have been fifty High School Football teams playing scrimmages. So, when we took the field, there were two teams who wanted to pound on each other. These were full contact scrimmages.
The scrimmages took place on a dozen or so fields, so each day we rotated to a different set of fields.
The 'we' I refer to was my crew. Before you arrive at the camp you are assigned to a crew who you work with the entire week. My crew was pretty good and was made up of guys from California and Texas.
At each of the scrimmage stations we each has a position coach who took notes and critiqued us. I had one-on-one mentoring from Tony Michalek, Russ Pulley, Scott Novak, and Ruben Fowler. Not too bad.
After a scrimmage session we would head back to the meeting room for class room discussions. Some of these discussions reviewed the new rules for 2008, officiating philosophies, tons of film review. Then, back on the field.
On Wednesday, my crew was filmed. Part of the program is to be filmed working a live scrimmage and then having the film critiqued play by play. This is very educational. And very intimidating. But, if you want to move up the ladder, you better get used to it. This is deal.
My film review was, in my opinion, average. I did somethings correct, other areas I need to improve. I clearly need to move with 'purpose', and at times, I am not staying with my keys long enough. I know why I am doing this. It just turns out I was wrong.
I did get conflicting feedback from my position coaches. At first I expected to learn the 'right' way. Or at least learn how I was missing the mark. But, it turns out, there is more than one way to umpire. Technique is one thing, but presence is another. Presence is what I really need to work on. And since I am only 5'9'', I need a shit-load of presence to stand out. I did get a lot of mentoring on how to show presence and I am each to try this out on the field.
Overall, the comments were "good job, watch my weight, and you are where you belong at this point of your career." Well, that's what I expect to hear. 2008 will only be my 2nd year of NCAA ball.
There is so much more to report on the camp. I'll include this in the next few posts.
Friday I am working the High School All-Star game again. Let' see if this is as much of a joke as last year.
And then Saturday night I am working the MLFA (Minor League Football Alliance) West State Championship Game. This means it is the California State Championship. The winner of this game plays for the National Championship for Spring Teams, who then would play the winner of the Fall Teams for the overall MLFA World Alliance Bowl. Kinda cool. I'll let you know how this goes.
