My friend Chip  Etier,Etierphotography, has recently started a new blog focusing on high school and college football officiating.

If you have a moment, drop by and pay his blog a visit. It’s called ZebraTales (appropriately named!) and you can find it at http://zebratales.blogspot.com/

We all know that rules knowledge and rules study are a vital part of every officials toolbox. Rules are so important from penalty enforcement to interpretation and intent. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has remarked at “how” the rulebook is written and possibly even looked for creative methods to study and learn from it.

Gary McCarthy, an Eastern College Athletic Confernece official from Massachusets, gave me this great idea in a recent interview. Actually this was just one of several gems Gary shared with me that have proven beneficial to accelerating his advancement and upward spiral.

Gary reads his rulebook and records it so he can listen to the recording in his car or on his iPod. While this may sound a bit overboard, hold that thought.

As a former educator, I know for a fact people have differnet learning styles. Some are visual, others must read, yet others must put their hands on things in order to learn new concepts. Gary’s technique address the people that like to hear (audio) in order to learn. In fact, the more methods you combine; the more effective your learning can be. So you can read the rulebook or you can listen to a self-made audio recording BUT if you combined both you might greatly enhance your ability to learn the material.

So I tried it. Had to. I was intriqued and had to see it for myself. So I just recorded Rule 2. Simple and relatively easy. I burned the file to a CD Rom so I could play it in my car. I’m please to say it went quite well. I definitely like the ability to rewind sections and repeat the process.

So thanks Gary! What a great tip for the rest of us. We promise to give you all the credit when we ace our annual rules exam each year! Try this out for yourself and let me know what you think. If anyone else had unique rules study techniques please leave your comments on the blog or email me at todd@profootballreferee.com.

Until next time,

Be the Best on the Field.

It’s been a short time since I’ve updated this blog and with good reason…My real job sent me up to Chicago to attend a tradeshow (The ProMat Material Handling Show). It was a good trip on the front end but as I left I was caught up in a traditional Chicago snow storm. After driving about two hours just to get out of the city, I still had about six hours to go.

Fortunately I made it back to Louisville in time to attend my first board meeting for the Kentuckiana Football Officials Association (www.kfoa.org). I am the incoming treasurer and I’m glad the snow storm didn’t force me to miss my first meeting.

So back to progress on the book…I’ve interviewed a few great officials in the past week. Matt Austin from the SEC, Kavin McGrath from the Big East and tomorrow I’ll be calling Doug Rhoads, the current supervisor of ACC football officiating. I’ll be posting a few summaries in the coming days about each of those great interviews.

Stay tuned and until we meet again,

Be the best on the field.

then you set your goals high and want to move up, get noticed and improve your officiating craft. This blog will be devoted to Officiating Excellence. Stay tuned for more details in the very near future.

Until then,