Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Really Good Officiating

Some of you know that I referee soccer matches for high school and youth games. It is not primarily self flagellation - I really just kind of like the exercise. But it does keep me humble, or at least, somewhat so.

I found that humility helpful this last year, as I watched the officials out at our FCCJC games.

In 3rd grade football (and, I think, for 4th grade too) we only have three officials. Two linesmen and the referee. Despite only those three pairs of eyes, I have to say that our officiating was pretty good.

Standing back as I did with the referee, behind our offensive line, I can't complain about a single holding call we had all year. The offside calls, encroachments, etc., were all fairly obvious, so no problems there.

In our first game there was a non-touchdown call that probably was a touchdown. Seemed so to the parents anyway. In our final game there were two judgment calls with which I disagreed. They were both non-calls, where blocks-in-the-back should have been called, and one of those plays was a touchdown. There was also a minor gaffe with the winding of the clock, that should not have occurred - but that problem turned out to be inconsequential.

Lest it seem I'm sucking sour grapes, understand that the better team won on that last day, so the outcome was just. And I'm sure that there were probably questionable calls that went in our favor through the rest of the season, if you asked the coaches on the other sides.

The major point here is that I have slight cause to complain about only four calls through an entire season of kid football. I find that pretty amazing.

If I could have only had four poor play choices calling games during the season, I'd have felt pretty good!

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