High School Football Weekend-Week 7

A good Friday night match-up with possible playoff implications. The home team is 4-2, the away team 6-0.

The game is downtown and while I was headed there the traffic wasn't the greatest. So I leave work early to make sure I get there in plenty of time. I'm the first one there so I get with one of the trainers right away and get my ankle taped.

Slowly the rest of our crew start to trinkle in. Once they all arrive we get started on our pregame. During the pregame the chicken at the concession stand smells out of this world. Anyway back to the game.

It's time for kickoff. The road team breaks a long run for a touchdown early in the game and goes for two. They are successful and the score is 8-0. For the most part the visitors are in control the whole game, but it's still a game. I had five flags in the game.

Now one of the strangest things happened in this game. Our Head Linesman is a very easy going kind of guy. We have been on this crew together for five years. I have NEVER seen him get upset. Not at a coach, not at a player, and not at a fan. But the guy that was running the box with the chain crew is a referee and he had our HL on fire. The box man wants to do Varsity games but I guess hasn't been successful with landing on a crew.

It's in the fourth quarter and the offense has the ball at about the 12-yardline with 1st and 10. The defense ends up getting a 15 yd facemask penalty on the play. Our umpire walks of the yardage half the distance to the goal so now it's 1st and 4 on the 6 yd line. But we notice that the chains are laid on the ground and only the box is up showing first down. Our H has the chain guys grab the sticks and get them back in the proper place. So we're ready to replay first down. Next thing you know our H is blowing is the whistle and stopping the game. I start chuckling to myself because I figured out what is going on. The guy on the box was giving our H a hard time and yelling at him saying it should be first and goal because of the facemask. Our H explained to us after the game that he was trying to speak to him nicely and explain that in high school football a 15 yd facemask is not an automatic first down. The guy would not listen so our H had to stop the game to get him to be quiet and quit yelling onto the field and yelling about the play. NO WAY! CLASSIC!

We joked around with our H in the locker room about it. We've had coaches go off, fans get upset, players mad, and none of them never got to him, but a referee on the box gets under his skin. Truly classic.

In the end the road team ended up on top with a 16-0 victory. Didn't get to eat any of that chicken and I had to head home since I had to be at it again the next day for college ball and didn't get to eat with the fellas. The rest of our crew will be doing a high school game on Saturday night.