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Several months ago, I was virtually introduced to Dan Fouts and invited to attend the first annual Blue Ridge Football Officials Clinic in Salem, VA. Held at the Salem Civic Center which is also the home of the DIII Stagg Bowl, it proved to be a great location for this event.
My WVIAC supervisor, Billy Alton, was scheduled to present so a few of my crew mates and I decided to road trip to this event. We left Kentucky early on Friday morning and took a short pit stop in Charleston, WV where a room full of WVIAC prospects were having an orientation meeting. We had a chance to attend a few breakout sessions and see some fellow officials and good friends. We hit the road around 4 pm and headed to Salem, VA.
We arrived at our hotel around 7 pm and quickly changed for dinner. We saw several fellow WVIAC officials and had a nice night swapping stories and getting caught up on the latest news.Ryan Kendall my WVIAC crew’s new umpire. Ryan and I met two years ago at a Mid-South spring clinic and have road-tripped to several training sites over the past two years. He and I worked a Univ. of Charleston scrimmage last year and entered the WVIAC together. Meddie is the BJ on my crew and basically the three of us are always in tow for any football officiating related event. Meddie might just be the king of clinics having attended almost every event within 500 miles of Cincinnati! Ryan, Meddie and I spent some quality time with our crew chief, Wally Todd which was nice because Ryan hadn’t really gotten acquainted with Wally.
After dinner we headed back for some rest and I had to make a visit to the local drug store to buy some required hearing protection. My room mate, Ryan, is notorious for his Poulan chainsaw imitation…ear plugs are required for sleep!
We arrived at the clinic 35 minutes before the scheduled start time and found a room full of football officials!
Note: If you want a good seat – get to the clinic EARLY.
We ended up at the back of the room (see photo) but at least we did get a seat. Some guys had to stand up for the first hour. I heard that about 175 officials were in attendance from about six states. Great turnout for their first event.
We spent the day listening to an all-start cast of conference supervisors followed by position breakout sessions lead by DI staff. I attended the Deep Wing sessions where Watts Key (ACC), Kip Johnson (ACC) and Kenny Long (CUSA) were our instructors. We covered passing and kicking situations and watched video. I really liked that the clinic provided a CD with all presentations and video clips for all attendees. I am planning on watching the other positions material this spring as well.
This clinic was special for me because I had the chance to meet some people in person that I had interviewed for my book Forward Progress. Doug Rhoads (ACC), Don Lucas (Sun Belt), Jim Maconaghy (Colonial, Ivy, Patriot) as well as Dan Fouts, the organizer of the Blue Ridge Clinic. (Not the bearded Dan Fouts of Chargers lore)
Something pretty cool happened at the first break. Josh Fath approached me to let me know he was fan of the website and he was also from Charlotte, NC. (I attended high school near Charlotte and played football at Parkwood High). Josh is attending several clinics this spring particularly the Reno clinic so I asked Josh to sit for a future podcast episode. Stay tuned for that.
The highlight of the day for me was a session that had little to do with officiating but everything to do with being a better football official. Dr. John Creasy and Jim Buriak froma href=”http://roanoke.edu/index.xml”> Roanoke College, Department of Human Performance, presented a superb session on stretching and agility for officials. They are doing some really cool research and training geared towards sports officials. As a matter of fact, Bruce Stritesky, an NFL umpire, has been working with their program and spoke about his advancement and improvement during his session. I’m going to have both Dr. Creasy and Bruce on a future podcast episode. That should be some really good content!
I’ve attended quite a few clinics over the past three years as I’ve attempted to improve my officiatinig skills and advance to the collegiate level. I can say without reservation that this clinic provided the best training yet in a single day format. The quality of instructors was fantastic, the film work and presentations were great and the accomodations were superb. It was a great value for $85 and I can’t wait to attend next year’s clinic.
There is some talk about this clinic making rounds at different locations over the coming years which will give other officials the opportunity to attend and learn. Hats off to Dan Fouts and his committee for providing a fantastic networking and training opportunity!
Todd,
Thank you for the nice review of our 1st annual clinic. We feel the clinic was a great success. We have received some great feedback and intend to work on few areas for improvement. Stay tuned for information about next years clinic. Currently, we are taking a break and concentrating on the spring season. Good luck in 2010.
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Dan Foutz
Comment by Dan Foutz — March 24, 2010 at 7:56 am