Semi-Pro Around the Corner

It's been forever and a day since my last post, but semi-pro ball will be starting again in February, so there will be plenty of Pigskinref coming your way. The Semi-pro arena has changed quite a bit since last season. More on this as we get closer.

Since the last report, I did work a High School playoff game in the Open Division between the fourth and fifth seeded teams. The Open Division has the big, powerhouse teams. What is relevant is this game did not have the best teams, but has two evenly matched teams. Around here, they pit the team seeded #1 against the #8 team, #2 against #7, etc. Generally, these games with high seeded teams are not evenly matched games, and in my opinion, do not require the best officials. It's these middle seeded games which are typically evenly matched and make me earn my money.

Unfortunately, one team pounded on the other, so there goes my theory. The team that really should have won did not come to play. They lost rather than the other team winning.

I also worked the All-Star game... again. (see 2007 All-Star post, 2006 All-Star post). As with last year, this was a clean game, but a very close contest. Click here to read the game report in the newspaper. It was a good, back and forth game. As it should.

The Ugly Side of the Game

Last month I was asked to work the so-called County All-Star game. I've worked several of these contest in the past and each year I say I'll never do them again. They are simply the poorest representation of what this game is all about. This year was no exception.



I only agreed to work the game if we could use NCAA mechanics and we could use this game as a training exercise. This seemed like a good idea since four of us were CCFOA candidates. All agreed and we decided to use seven-man mechanics.



I worked line judge (I typically work White Hat on JV/Fresh and Umpire on Var) which took a series or two for me to get my eyes back, so to speak. Holding my ground until the ball passed the LOS is not natural. This is not the same mechanic as five-man HS. Eventually, I settled in.



Even more challenging for me was trusting the field judge. Again, I was not used to having this help on passes to my sideline. We had one of those plays where the receiver danced the sideline. I saw feet in, but not the ball. I ruled catch, but the FJ saw the ball was not possessed in the field of play. I should have looked at him before killing the clock. Lesson learned.



All this was marred in the 2nd half of the game More than once we spoke with the team captains to get everyone under control and once we even brought both head coaches together to calm things down. Just a lot of pushing and smart mouthing. We ejected a player for throwing the ball at the opposite team's coach following a touchdown. It all finally came to a head when the benches cleared and there was a big brawl with about 4:00 remaining in the 4th. We tried for a good two minutes to get things under control. We'd get it stopped, then it would start-up again.



We finally ran off the field when fans entered the playing field. We were already being heckled and the losing side was looking for an excuse to take it out on us. When the cops came on the field, then I knew our jurisdiction was finally over.



All very sad since this game is for charity and these players are supposed to be 'all-stars'.