It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee reflecting on my clinic experience yesterday before ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters” comes on TV (my Sunday morning ritual).

I attended the Heartland Conference this weekend at Ball State University. About 40 officials from 5-6 states gathered in Muncie, Indiana yesterday. It was a well-organized event combining film review and field work over a full 8 hour day.

The film review centered around a set of plays scripted from Dan Romeo. “Dr. Dan” is a referee in the Mountain West and also a dentist, hence his moniker. Dr. Dan compiles a series of plays each year and Larry Snyder, Heartland’s Supervisor of Football Officials, was fortunate enough to obtain a copy. The session, entitled “You Make The Call” put the participants into crews with a basic representation of each position in a 7-man crew. The morning consisted of reviewing about 14 of the 26 plays. Wish we had more time, but the discussion was healthy and it gave the seminar attendees a great chance to talk philosophy and judgement on a wide variety of play situations.

After lunch, we broke out by positions and hit the field. I attended the “short wing” session, or line of scrimmage officials. Brian Bollinger, a Line Judge in the Mid Atlantic Conference; did a fantastic job of walking through some of the differences you see when making the move from high school to college. We covered LOS mechanics in detail and this session gave great insight into what it takes to officiate at the NCAA level.

We returned to the class room to wrap up the day. Larry Snyder gave us his list of What it Takes to Succeed at the NCAA and NFL level. To keep this post short, I’ll cover the first three areas here and finish this up in a few days.

What It Takes to Become a Successful Football Official – At Any Level

1. Study Rules of the Game

• Rule Book
• Tests & Quizzes
• Ask Other Officials
• Quiz a Buddy
• Never Stop Learning

1. Study Mechanics of Game

• CCA Mechanics Manual
• Camps & Clinics
• Philosophy
• Attend area meetings/rules study groups (Do any of you do this now?)

1. Surround yourself with better officials

• Its hard to soar with the eagles, when you are surrounded by turkeys.

Part Two (continued in a few days)

1. Watch film – Imperative
2. Experience – How much is enough
3. What You Have Control Over

That’s it for now, gang. I’ll finish this list later in the week. June is already here and that means football is just two months away!!!!

Be the Best on the Field

Todd

Practice, Practice, Practice

 

Why does it seem a bit goofy for an official to stand in front of a mirror and practice signals, but it’s normal for a player to spend hours working on a post-up move to the basket? Why would it seem strange to witness a basketball referee in his backyard tossing a jump ball to imaginary players, but there’s no problem with a baseball player hitting off a tee in his garage, practicing his swing?

Truth is, many officials don’t practice at all. Think about it: Is it really fair to the players and coaches who have put hours, weeks and years into their games for officials to show up without a second of practice? To that end, officials need to act more like players and coaches. We must practice what we do.

For his first two years in the NFL, referee Ed Hochuli was a back judge on former referee Howard Roe’s crew. Hochuli says that before every game, Roe stood before a mirror, practicing signals. One day, Hochuli jokingly asked Roe if he’d finally gotten them down pat. Roe turned to Hochuli and answered seriously, “It’s important to get it just right.” Hochuli agrees that attitude helps officials improve. “You’re never too qualified to improve,” said Hochuli. “Being picky pays off.”

Techniques. There are lots of things officials can practice — some mental, others physical. This brief list shows just some of the things you could practice that will help you in your games.

• Practice tossing the ball underhand to your crewmate. Too often poor tosses among crewmates bounce aimlessly or sail overhead. It looks bad and slows things down. Work on it.
• Count the offense/defense. You can easily practice this while watching any game, live or on TV.
• Know your keys. Line of Scrimmage or Deep Officials – As the offense lines up, call out your key.
• Also, do your best Howard Roe imitation and practice your signals, even if you’re not the referee. Make sure your signals are strong and crisp. While practicing them, think about the proper yardage and penalty administration.

 

 

I arrived at the stadium early as suggested by several, actually I was the first to hit the locker room. I had to find Coach Brohm to unlock the door and let me inside. Rumor had it that over 100 recruits and their families were on hand to watch teh scrimmage. Louisville closed the scrimmage to outsiders so the stands mostly empty.

My fellow officials began to arrive shortly after I did. It was rather chilly that day so we agreed to wear long sleeve shirts. Knickers had already been called earlier in the week. I had already shined my shoes the night before (a pregame ritual with me) so my uniform was in order. I also packed about 1000 butterflies in my stomach as well!

I hit the field with 8 other officials from the Big East (2), Sunbelt (1), Ohio Valley (2), Mid South (1) and two rookies (me included). Kavin McGrath, Big East HL and brother to John McGrath (NFL), was the organizer of the officials and had asked me where I wanted to work. My preference is the line of scrimmage but I also wanted to get a few snaps in at SJ/FJ too. Tommy Walsh made it almost to the field  before he realized he was missing a hat! Too funny.

One thing that concerned me was my lack of experience with NCAA mechanics. See that’s not something that’s easy to find, or to read up on. I did however, have a chance to review the rulebook and we covered the proposed 2009 rule changes prior to taking the field. So I followed John McGrath’s  advice: Get behind on of the veterans and ask questions. So I parked myself on the sideline behind Tommy Walsh from the Big East and did exactly that. Soaked it up.

Before I knew it, Tommy turned towards me and motioned me to the side line. Fortunately I had the Defense on my side so most of the coaching staff were located opposite of me. I still remember Tommy’s advice: “remember…they might be a little bit bigger, a little bit faster, but its still just football.” That helped calm my nerves…a little bit.

The first couple of plays were runs and relatively easy. The mechanics here are basically the same as high school. Then the Offense came out and lined up in the shotgun. Pass play. Something didn’t look  right on my side. Now Tommy had explaining how he counts players on his side of the ball. This was a little new to me so it took some time to process. I had been working on repeating my “SNAP, TACKLE, BACK” chant in my head while I counted  the players. Trying to gain some form of brain repetition with regards to football officiating. I also was learning my keys during  this time. But as I said before, something on this play didn’t look right but I must admit, the snap happened before I figured it out. Bad move.

You  see, rookie officials are not the only people on the field battling the butterflies. Seems WR’s have similar issues as well especially with regards to formations. The WR on my side was covering up the TE and upon the snap, guess what happened? You got it, they both released downfield. I missed it. No yellow flag on the ground to enunciate  the penalty. But the defensive coaching staff didn’t miss it!!! I then got my first taste of Big East ear-chewing, but you can bet I didn’t miss that again the rest of the day!

So I alternated with Tommy a few more series then Kavin McGrath came over from the LJ  side to work with me. Tommy moved back to Side Judge and I had the chance to brush up on the finer points of working the Line of Scrimmage from not one but two outstanding Big East officials. it was great just to be in an environment where I could immediately ask another official about a play, situation, possible penalty or otherwise.

So three hours later, the scrimmage came to a close. After the first few series, the butterflies subsided and I found I was really enjoying myself. It was a great experience, one filled with many learnings, some good laughs and a few mistakes from which I will not soon forget. When you are passionate about the game of football, surrounded by the comraderie of fellow officials and sharing the field with the best of the best, I couldn’t help but feel very fortunate for the chance to don the knickers in March.

August can’t come soon enough.