Another Test Done. Still no Schedule.

Just finished the High School summer test. This is not the qualification test, but a good warm-up test to get you thinking about about the rules. The test consists of 100 true/false questions. Most are pretty easy and it is nothing like the college tests. Here are some examples:

• If a forward pass touches an official who is in the field of play, the pass is ruled incomplete even if it is subsequently caught by a player of either team?
• R1 (a player on the receiving team) may not fair-catch a free kick in the neutral zone?
• A dead ball may become live only by legal snap or free kick?
• Butt blocking is illegal in the open field but permitted only in close line play?
  

Send me your answers. I'll post the answer next in my next entry.

I still do not have my college schedule which is becoming frustrating.

Planning to Plan

It's August 2nd and I have not received my college schedule. The coordinator sent us an email stating the system that schedules the games either was not working or had inaccurate information.

The email was broken out by position and it looks like eight of the Umpires are not available most of the weeks. We have twenty-two Umpires and sixteen games per week, so this should mean I'll get a full schedule this season. Last season I worked eight out of twelve games... which wasn't bad for a Candidate.

It also appears from the what he sent that many of my fellow officials are also working other conferences. This is good news. During our clinics, camps, and other meetings, we are repeatedly told the CCFOA is good recruiting ground for the other conferences. The fact there are scheduling conflicts confirms this is true.

Monday night beings my high school football meetings. I really hate going to these meetings. They are not well run and a lot of time is wasted. Plus there are ten meetings this year. I'm already going to miss one meeting because I have to travel for work.

I understand we need a certian amount of training ohurs each season to qualify... fine, but could we either make the meetings longer, so there are fewer of them, or just get them all over with in one week? I don't mind putting the time to study and prepare. Hell, I'm doing football all year now and constantly study, but I can't promise I will make ten Monday nights in a row.

My business trip will be later this month and will conflict with a meeting on 8/26. I'm sure this will be 'mandatory' meeting where we turn in our tests and if I don't attend I won't get playoff games again.

On another note, I made a request to the HS coordinator that I'd like to be considered for the next Varsity White Hat position. There are two White Hats that will retire very soon and three of the existing White Hats have stated I'm ready.

The coordinator has not replied.

Qualifying Exam Finally Over

Saturday was the annual Summer Clinic in Stockton. We met at 5:00AM to make the 7:00AM start time. We did not finish until after 3:00PM. It was a long friggin day.

The clinic combines training sessions with the qualifying exam. The association (called The ORG) takes this meeting so seriously that if you do not attend, you will either get no games, or have reduced schedule. It's a big deal.

During the clinic we learned we are getting an increase on the game fees. The feedback from the coaches is they see we are improving and feel the raise is justified. Good news.

During one of the meetings the leaders asked all the new officials to stand. Eight stood-up. Then one year guys - eight more. Then two and three years. We were told this accounted for forty-six out of 142 guys. Thirty-three percent of the Org has less than four years. That's hard to believe. We need more people. And the coaches want us to go to seven man mechanics. We do too, but we need more bodies.

The training consists of new rule review and lots of film. This year was much better than last year. The film was better quality and the plays we reviewed were very black and white. What I mean is the examples for hitting a Defenseless Player, or Chop Block were very easy to see and make it very clear what to watch for.

At one point we broke out into position specific meetings. The Umpire group was lead by Carl Paganelli Coordinator of Officials for the Mid-American Conference. We walked through multiple play scenarios covering what we should be keying on and what he looks for when rating an official (upgrades and downgrades). Then we reviewed more film focusing on what the Umpire was looking at... and most often what he was missing.

We got into a lengthly debate with Carl on Punts. The issue was how long to spend watching play on the line of scrimmage verses watching flyers hitting the strikezone. We felt if we have two players going at one another and the white hat is with kicker we cannot just spin to watch the action in the strickzone. We need to watch these two players. The counter argument was statistically there are less fouls with these two players than with fouls on players in the strikezone and the fouls in the strikezone are typically more volient and safety related. If you are going to err, err on the side of the two players who are only going to hurt themselves. I'm not sure I buy this. Carl did not and said so to our corrdinator.

There were two tests; one on mechanics and the second on rules. The former was pretty easy. Missed one out of twenty five. The second test was very difficult and I missed three.

I'm glad this part of the season is over. I should get my schedule by Aug 1st.

All-Star Game Finally Fails to Meet Expectations

Each time I work an All-Star game I have a story to tell and last weekend's High School All-Star game is no exception. The story is... there is no story. No fights, no game ending brawl, no scar on the city's reputation. Absolutely nothing negative happened. The players played, we officials stayed out of the way, and the competition was evenly matched. The game was decided by an earlier 2 point Try which failed and a last minute TD pass. The final score was 20-21. If I were prone to clichés I'd call this game - one for the books.

But, there is always a story.

Our High School associations uses five man mechanics to officiate games. Most HS games across the country at the Varsity level use five man. But for this game our assigner said we would use seven officials. OK. I guess. My experience with seven man was limited to last weeks college camp and my entire college experience has been six man mechanics. Only two of us had any college level experience. The fans may get more than they bargained for.

So thirty minutes before the game, there was a covey of officials huddled around a book trying to figure out who does what on seven man.

I was originally scheduled to work Side Judge. Twenty minutes before game time we only had five officials, so I moved to Line Judge. With ten minutes to spare before game time the sixth man finally arrived. He went to the wrong stadium. The bottom line is the seventh guy never made it to the game, so we went to six man and I moved to Umpire.

Before the game we were instructed on some rule alterations. Such as no blitzing. What exactly does blitz mean? For this game it meant only five rushers and only those on the line of scrimmage. How about no rushing for 'three Mississippi' also? Like I have time to count five guys rushing and determine if they were on the LOS. No one said they had to be down linemen. The DB covering the wide out is on the LOS. A few of my crew mates threw flags for this 'blitzing' foul, and then we heard 'but I was in a three point stance'. We simply pointed out we knew how to count to five.

The format this year was different than previous years. Apparently the teams practiced together for two weeks before the game. They knew each other and seemed to respect one another. It had the feel of an inter-squad scrimmage rather than the East vs. West of previous years. This seemed to help keep the game under control.

The game sponsor spent a great deal of time with the young men explaining they would be removed from the game if they crossed the line. And he made the line very thin - zero tolerance for anything that would mare the game. No questions asked. I liked that.

For most of these players this will be the last time they will put on pads. They all played that way and most of them gave the game, and their fellow warriors, the respect they deserved.

The game was not perfect. I threw an Illegal Block Below the Waist on the Center against a blitzing Line Backer. I suppose those could have been offsetting fouls, but that would have been just weird. The LB never actually made it pass the LOS, so I guess what I called was right.

I also threw a flag for Holding. The Center again, grabbing the shoulder pads and then twisting the defender just as the ball ran by him. There may have also been a Chop Block I missed, but it was on the backside of the play.

Not a juicy story like last year, but still a story.

Confessions of a Referee - College Camp Update

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.

College Football Begins Again

Today I leave for a week long 'camp' for Football Officials in Reno. At the camp I will be on a crew which will get filmed during full-contact scrimmage and then be evaluated by a mentor. I'll have much ore to say about this when I return. There will be over 50 Div I, NFL, Arena Football Officials on-site as mentors. I'm really looking forward to this.

Minor League Football - Last Week

I was scheduled to work the Conference Championship game on Sat. but was too ill. I took myself off the game. The next round of playoff is next week. so maybe I'll get this game.