Varsity Football Scrimmage

Friday night was the start of our high school season as we officiated a Varsity football scrimmage.

Both teams looked pretty good on offense and it was nice to get back out there and run the field. The weather was hot, the players were passionate, and I was pumped up chest bumping my fellow refs. Friday night lights are back!

I had a few penalties and some talk to the players about situations.

Hard hits, explosive touchdowns, and what? No screaming coaches or fans at the officials??? Not yet. Soon.

The following day I reffed a few Peewee football games and that went smooth. Some really good young football players.

This Friday is the official start to the season as we officiate in the Skyline Crosstown Showdown. We have Lakota West vs. Northmont and it should be a dandy of a game to kickoff the season!

It's Time!

It has been a different kind of offseason for me this year. Let me just say I'm thankful...

It's that time of the year again. Friday night football starts for me tonight. I've had a little bit of tuning up with some 7 on 7 reffing and already got some Peewee games in.

My adrenaline has been through the roof the past couple of days because we won our co-ed softball championship at work. I know its co-ed but we were still fired up.

Tonight's game is a scrimmage but it involves two good teams. No. 4 nationally ranked Elder at Lakota West. Both of these teams could very well end up in the playoffs.

Let the games begin!

A Few Months

The past few months have been, hmmm, different.

This spring and summer is the first time I've been off from officiating in 2 years. The previous couple of years I had officiated in the Arena Football 2 league but suffered a bad ankle injury in the last game of the year. I took this season off to let it heal.

With that said I haven't been bored by any means. For a few weeks I officiated one of my favorite sports, Flag Football. It was a youth league on Saturday mornings. It was nice as well because the parents were very calm.

I've also officiated some Men's basketball games and some AAU basketball.

For the first time our crew was selected to officiate our tri-state's high school all-star football game in early June. It was a Thursday night and the weather was awesome. Let me say it was a very exciting game.

The halftime score was 10-7, but it was fireworks city in the second half. There were some special rules for this game. Only so many guys could blitz and had to do it a certain way. We also played according to the rules for the upcoming season so two penalties were enforced for horse-collar tackles.

For the most part I felt great out there. Definitely had to shake off some rust. We did have one situation on the goalline that I may have missed. I plan to borrow a tape to see if I missed it and will work on improving so it doesn't happen again.

Next week I start officiating in a 7 on 7 league. This will be a nice tune-up before it's full go in August. Next thing you know it will be time to attend our football meetings.

Down Time

It has been nice to have some time off from the hardcore officiating and spend it with the family. However, I have had a peculiar couple of months. I'll be back shortly to talk some officiating stuff that may peak your interest.

Lakota West Offseason Duals

I had the pleasure of officiating and off season dual wrestling tournament at Lakota West a couple of Saturdays ago.

We worked our tails off. We had 6 officials on six mats with no break and 8 rounds of hardcore Varsity type matches. There were several state placers and champs in the house. This made for some stellar match-ups.

I ended up officiating the match for first place between Fairfield and Harrison. It was a pretty long day for all of us and all of the officials hadn't officiated for over a month. However, I don't think we acquired to much rust and for the most part it was a smooth day.

The tournament director had me get the officials for this event, so I was able to get some fresh guys and let some of rookies from our association get some Varsity experience. One of them had the most intense dual of the day between Mason and Fairfield.
The second to last match was the 215 weight class that went into overtime. The Mason wrestler had 30 seconds to get up and there were some tough scrambles that put the young official in unique situations. He had both benches going crazy but he stayed strong on his calls and looked poised out there. The Fairfield wrestler ended up riding his opponent out and then his teammate pinned in the following match at 275 lbs. This gave Fairfield the victory and eventually they won the whole tournament.
I had the chance to observe overtime of the 215 match and after the official walked off the mat, I looked him in the face and said, "You said you wanted eventually do the big matches, that's a good start. You still want too?" We shared a laugh. We actually grew up together in high school. Back then we were friends one day and ready to do battle the next. We laugh about those days now. Glad to help him anyway that I can in the officiating process as well as any other official, fan or wrestler for that matter.

Since then I've only officiated Flag football. For now I'm not scheduled to officiate wrestling again until late May.

But I still keep up with the sport and like to stay in tune with new rule changes or anything else that may be going on.