American Football Officials?

[Welpe]

Hey there, I just wanted to see if anybody here also officiated American football?  I played soccer when I was a kid and lost interest in it in favor of American football.  I didn't really become interested in soccer again until the 2006 World Cup and then watching intramural games when I was an intramural supervisor in college.  Anyways, I am considering taking officiating the roundball sport.  As a former American football player, it always seemed the players of the two sports were always at odds with each other.  Is that the case for officiating too?

My area is pretty rich with youth soccer so I figured it would be smartest to start there, especially since it has been long time since I've played.  I'd eventually like to start doing High School since it is primarily played in the winter here and it would not be in conflict with pointy ball.

I just wanted to get some discussion going, please fire away.   

[Osric Pureheart]

I'm in Britain: started with soccer, took up football later.

The hardest thing to adjust to was the pace I was expected to work at: I quickly settled down at U and for about my first 15 games, everyone I worked with was on the point of putting me on a choke chain to slow me down.  The one thing soccer assessors kept telling me was to work faster, faster faster.  Don't stand still, walk.  Don't walk, jog.  Don't jog, run.  I got into football and suddenly it was the other way round.  The pace you view the game at is something you absolutely and totally take for granted until you do something where the paradigm's different.

I don't do much soccer any more.  Working football from U or R I get to be with other officials all the time, the players call me 'sir', I'm not expected to put up with dissent, I have to run less, and I get to do all the man-management stuff that attracted me to officiating in the first place.  On the other hand, I'm glad I had those years of doing soccer by myself (as one of my referees' secretaries was fond of opining loudly whenever the subject arose, club linesman are all cheats): it taught me a lot about managing players and how to control them and keep a decent game going, and if ever I want to whine about any of the petty annoyances of football (like the impenentrable rulebook or the silly trousers) I just think back to the time when I sent someone off for sprinting 30 yards to scream "you f****g c**t" into my face and if his mate hadn't wrestled him away he'd probably have got himself 182 days for assaulting a match official.  I still do the odd bit, but now that I've seen a better way it's not worth the hassle.

[Welpe]

Osric, an interesting perspective you provide.  Thank you for sharing!  You mention club linesman, did you work with ARs or was it primarily by yourself?  The diagonal system of control is intriguing to me considering that the soccer pitch is larger than a football field and you have just as many players. 

It does seem disset is more accepted in soccer than in other sports.  Regardless, my appreciation for the game has grown and I am interested in giving officiating a try for the challenge.  I am facing a bit of a conundrum though as it seems the youth soccer season and football ARE in conflict with each other.  I'm not about to give up football so maybe I'll be crazy enough to try and do both!   

[Osric Pureheart]

You mention club linesman, did you work with ARs or was it primarily by yourself?

I've lined to a referee several times, but never worked with neutral assistants.  The vast majority of my games are done alone.

The diagonal system of control is intriguing to me considering that the soccer pitch is larger than a football field and you have just as many players. 

Different game.  As a rule of thumb, there will be relevant action occuring in (at most) three parts of the pitch at any one time.

1). As a unified whole: the ball, the area surrounding it, and the area where the ball has just been, where there is always relevant action (even if it's gone out of play and over the hills and far away, there's timekeeping concerns).

2). The area where the ball is about to go, especially the drop zone after a high ball or cross.

3). The offside lines.

It's impossible for the referee to give offside accurately (there's ways and means of fudging it when working alone and a lot of teams who are used to it have been trained never to expect an offside decision and to stay goalside of the attackers at all times), so you put an official on each offside line, and suddenly you've got enough pairs of eyes to see everything.

It's funny.  I've lost count of the number of times I've explained this sort of thing to soccer fans, except this time I'm doing it backwards (because I'm usually explaining how in football you can easily have seven or more areas of the field that need watching at once).

[KPKLR]

I started with American football as a way to help stay in shape but the amount of inactivity didn't do a lot for me. I still do football, but started soccer four years ago. It quickly became my favorite. Not only is there the genuine exercise on the field but you have to keep your fitness up to qualify for your badge. Except at the college and professional levels, American football is generally lacking in this area.

[Teevee]

A little late I know but I've just joined the forum. I'm in the U.K and do both. Started soccer when I was sixteen and worked up to semi-pro until a career change prevented going any higher, started football when I was 32. There's no conflict provided you can flip your mindset for each game. I've always had the impression that if you can control/manage a game of soccer with all its cultural problems then you'd make a pretty efficient official in any sport. In most games the secret of being a good official is managing the combatants (and on a Sunday morning game after a long Saturday night in the pub that can be exactly what they are ) and it was starting soccer refereeing at 16 that taught me that. The diagonal system of control is just a guide, more easily applied when you've got a good 'team of three' than when you have yourself and a couple of club AR's. As far back as I can remember unless I had 2 FA assistants that diagonal was more like a cross as the diagonal endlessly changed direction to ensure I was where I could control the game. Strange really, that kind of improvisation is necessary in soccer, when you're working so closely as a team in a football crew it's a recipe for disaster. I also find that fitness is important in football. There might not be lot of running around, but you're on your feet for longer and need to stay mentally very alert.

The nice thing about football is that there's always more than one of you which statistically improves your chances when/if the crowd turns nasty, and so far over here in the U.K there aren't as many people claiming they know the rules better than you do ... even though they wouldn't recognise a rulebook if one flew into their face ...