From the mouths of coaches: 2015

[yarnnelg]

Freshman game, Assistant Coaches with stop watches. "Man, you guys are off by 10 seconds!" "What?" "Off by 10 seconds!" "Let me see" Guy hands me his stop watch, I look at my watch and hit the button .... " Just what I thought, your stop watch is slow. I bet all your guys run 4.2 40 times, buy that thing at KMart?" "No Wal Mart" "Should have saved your money and watched the shoppers instead, that thing was made in China completely different time zone." "Does that affect the timing?"

Walked away shaking my head. Head Coach was rolling...made them put away the stop watches.

[NorCalMike]

Freshman game, Assistant Coaches with stop watches. "Man, you guys are off by 10 seconds!" "What?" "Off by 10 seconds!" "Let me see" Guy hands me his stop watch, I look at my watch and hit the button .... " Just what I thought, your stop watch is slow. I bet all your guys run 4.2 40 times, buy that thing at KMart?" "No Wal Mart" "Should have saved your money and watched the shoppers instead, that thing was made in China completely different time zone." "Does that affect the timing?"

Walked away shaking my head. Head Coach was rolling...made them put away the stop watches.

[VALJ]

Freshman game, Assistant Coaches with stop watches. "Man, you guys are off by 10 seconds!" "What?" "Off by 10 seconds!" "Let me see" Guy hands me his stop watch, I look at my watch and hit the button .... " Just what I thought, your stop watch is slow. I bet all your guys run 4.2 40 times, buy that thing at KMart?" "No Wal Mart" "Should have saved your money and watched the shoppers instead, that thing was made in China completely different time zone." "Does that affect the timing?"

Walked away shaking my head. Head Coach was rolling...made them put away the stop watches.

Tremendous!

[VALJ]

Not quite a "mouth of coaches", but this one just occurred to me for some reason.  A few years back I was working a game for a group of home-schooled children that came together under the team name "Disciples".  We had the national anthem, then they called for us to bow our heads in prayer.  One of the parts of the prayer was for the officials to have "keen eyesight and good judgement."  When we got together for our huddle prior to the kickoff I asked the crew "did we just get insulted during the pregame invocation?"

[jlharris]

I was working a JV game recently as a wing official.  I had already thrown flags for chop block (my tackle and guard) and an UNS for "shoot-'em-up" gesture after a big play; I throw another flag for chop block and coach complained to me that "you're calling this game likes a VARSITY game!" 

[TxBJ]

When we got together for our huddle prior to the kickoff I asked the crew "did we just get insulted during the pregame invocation?"

Why would you take that as an insult?  My crew prays before each game and asks for something similar for ourselves that evening.

[VALJ]

It's fine when WE ask for it.  When someone else says it, it sounds a bit like an insult... 

That said, I forgot to put the smiley face at the end of my post...

[theunofficialofficial]

I was working a JV game recently as a wing official.  I had already thrown flags for chop block (my tackle and guard) and an UNS for "shoot-'em-up" gesture after a big play; I throw another flag for chop block and coach complained to me that "you're calling this game likes a VARSITY game!" 

Better than being yelled that you're calling the game like an NFL game...

[ncwingman]

Better than being yelled that you're calling the game like an NFL game...

Better than being yelled at because you AREN'T calling the game like an NFL game.

I've had a few youth coaches (3/4th graders) go ballistic because we were letting the ticky-tack procedural stuff go and just letting the kids play.

Yes, it'd be an illegal formation on Thursday or Friday night, but not on Saturday afternoon in the park, and the offensive lineman who fell over because he's top-heavy in his pads did not gain an advantage by "false starting".

[riffraft]

Had a real good one this past week.

4th and 10, A runs about 7 yds goes out of bounds and then is hit late. Flag thrown. We tell A's coach that it is B's ball since A didn't make the line to gain and we will enforce the late hit against B. Needless to say this didn't go over well. In fact one of A's asst coaches decided to tell us we need to learn the F ing rules. So much for the 15 yards against B. A's coach then called time out to discuss our ruling. First thing out of his mouth is "a late hit is a continuation play." I confess I laughed (I did try to stifle it, but wasn't successful). I wanted to tell him this wasn't basketball.

[stevegarbs]

Better than being yelled that you're calling the game like an NFL game...

Or working a game with a former fill-in NFL referee and hearing the coach yell "You're the guy that blew that coin toss last week!"

[stevegarbs]

Two weeks ago, by the defensive coach when the flag was thrown on a QB sack and before we even announced the penalty- "That can't be holding on us because it was a run play." Um, coach how do you think it went from a passing to a running play?

This week, again by the defensive coach on a holding call- "But the pass didn't cross the line of scrimmage."

Both were in varsity playoff games. The second guy actually accepted my explanation. Not so much with the first guy- "First time in 40 years I've seen that call."

[Ralph Damren]

Early season game last Fall, in a pregame meeting with a coach....

 Coach to our crew : "Guys, I really need a number of the player who fouled as a corrective measure."

 Our crew to coach : "We'll do our best, coach."

Early in our early season game : His team broke the huddle, but snapper must have forgotten the snap count . On the 2nd "HUT" everyone jumped except for the snapper who held the ball in place.

  = more flags than a 4th of July parade

I yelled over to the sidelines : "False start on everyone but the snapper ."

The coach and sent in a new snapper ....

.......and the band played on.....

(PS: that team won)