Tommy Moore discusses why you need to bring your A game regardless of what level you officiate. As a deep wing official in the Southwest Conference to 12 years in the NFL then on to the replay booth, Tommy Moore has seen it all in football officiating.

This podcast will how to choose a Football Officiating Clinic. The Tom Beard Football Officiating Clinic is held at Howard University in Washington, DC. Listen as I discuss with the Clinic leaders how to select a camp, how to prepare for attending a camp and how to get the most out of this unique training experience.

My good friend Ron Diviney (from Texas where football is BIG and officials wear spurs) sent me this PDF which goes into great detail on stretching. Stretching is a fundamental component of my workout regiment as well as my pregame preparation.

I keep a large resistance bandwhich is about 4 inches wide and about 6 feet long in my bag. I use it to assist in stretching my hamstrings and glutes, shoulders and chest. You can find one at Amazon.com and you should definitely have one in your gym bag. If you want to see the one I have…click here

I continue to see officials use stretching techniques without a proper warm-up period which can do more harm than good often leading or contributing to injury.

Check out this article which does a great job explaining the proper way to stretch.

http://www.iahsaa.org/officials/Officials_Warmup_&_Stretching_Handout.pdf

Here is to better health, better fitness and better football officiating!

Be the Best on the Field,

Todd

Some of you may know in addition to my love for football officiating, I have recently become a high school basketball official. I’m in my rookie season as a JV official with the Kentuckiana Basketball Officials Association. I’m having a lot of fun and this experience reminds me of my rookie football season 7 years ago.

So I’ve been thinking about how to apply what I’ve learned from football to basketball, and there are definitely parallels. Let’s take mentoring for example. I want to move up to varsity in the quickest amount of time. There are some officials that are working JV for the 7 and 8th year.  While that may  be okay for some, its not how I’m built. I want to improve and advance. Just my nature.

If you are interested in moving up as a college football official, then you need to listen to Bill Lemonnier. Bill presently serves as a Referee for the Big 10 Conference and in the former Arena Football League. In his 15 seasons with the Big 10, Bill has been honored with 12 Bowl assignments.