First-year football official here

[Pete Peterson Sr]

Can you guys direct me to any and all sites that will help increase my knowledge base ? I have joined an association that covers youth and middle school football. I am a 20+ year veteran of umpiring baseball, at the HS and college level, so I have a very good foundation in the principles of officiating. We are doing training during our weekly association meetings, and I have my nose in the rule book, but I'm trying every avenue to get up to speed. Thank you in advance.

[VALJ]

Welcome to the fraternity, Pete!

IMHO, you've joined one of the best online resources right here.  The discussion is usually pretty lively, rarely degenerates, and we even have a coach (Atlanta Blue) who hangs out here, so we can get a coaches' perspective, too.  (It's just a darn shame he's a coach - he'd be a fantastic official.  We need to redeem him from the dark side... )

When I started officiating football 15 years ago, I'd been a little league baseball and softball umpire since I was 16.  I found that I had a bit of a head start in knowing how to be an official, though I needed to learn all of the football side of things.  I had never played football before, so my biggest weakness was "game sense", which I'd like to think has gotten better over the years.

Good to have you!

[Kalle]

If you work NCAA rules, the best resource is http://romgilbert.us/

[Ralph Damren]

Welcome, Pete, to our forum may you find it both enjoyable and informative. IMHO, this is an excellent forum for a new guy. You may want to hang out on the NFHS site, as there you'll be seeing posts for other guys working high school and middle school games. I ,too, am a baseball umpire and your officiating psyche from there will prove helpful. IMHO, baseball calls are 80%=+ objective (fair/foul,out/safe,ball/strike) where in football probably -50% are objective (catch/no catch, inbounds/OOB,marking forward progress). The subjective calls are the hardest to master (PI or no,holding or no,etc) and often will determine the better official. Good luck, Pete, and remember -our game has a clock - it will give you a general idea as to when you can be home - no one hour innings!!!
                                                     -Ralph

[NorCalMike]

As others have said this is the best site on the internet for football rules discussions. If you have a question, ask.

[Pete Peterson Sr]

 Thank you all, very much. I am trying to absorb as much as possible, while gaining understanding.

[VALJ]

And if you don't mind some unsolicited advice...

Read Rule 2.  Then read rule 2 again.  Then read it again.  And again.  And then, just for something different, try reading rule 2.  and so on..

Rule 2, the definitions of terms, sets the foundation for everything that we do.  If you don't know whether a player is legally a lineman, you can't determine if there are 7 or more men on the line of scrimmage.  The more comfortable you are with those definitions, the better off you'll be.

Also, if you don't have a copy of the rulebook you can leave in your bathroom, or on a tablet that you can bring in when you need to do your business, you should.  What else do you have to do for those couple of minutes?

[yarnnelg]

I officiated baseball since I was 17. When I was directed to football officiating I was fortunate to get the attention of the two best senior officials in the Association. Instantly I had two outstanding mentors. I watched a lot of training film to get mechanics down and read anything I could get my hands on. I'm anal about the rule book, so I read it constantly. Every time you read the book you pick something else up. I also went to games being officiated by my mentors and switched from both sidelines to the press box to watch, then asked a ton of questions. I was on the Varsity field my second year and a full time crew the following year.

In the end, it's what you put in that counts.

[ljudge]

For some more unsolicited advice, do what VALJ said over and over and over!

Congrats on your move.  I'm going to give you some advice about your baseball career.  There's a well-seasoned NCAA referee Jon Bible who I met at a clinic who has officiated (I think multiple) NCAA national championship games who wrote an article about his assimilation to football after having worked the collegiate world series.  He offers some great advice.  While it's good you posted you worked umpiring that helps to understand you have been an official and gives some context that you aren't new to officiating in general.  Jon wrote a couple of articles in Referee magazine about how when he got into football that he often brought up his baseball umpiring in football locker rooms and how he's worked the collegiate world series.  He went on to say (paraphrasing) that the other officials didn't care to hear it and it really didn't have any relevance to football.  I myself have worked with a former college umpire who would do nothing but talk about in pregame was baseball and he'd flash his giant ring around while talking baseball so he'd be accepted as a collegiate football official.   No one cared and it was annoying as HECK.  He had a big mouth and is now out of football all together.  All he should have done was work hard to become accepted (Jon's advice) vs. using his background to do so.

Use your officiating 'know how' from baseball is appropriate but leave baseball itself on the diamond and don't bring it over to the gridiron.  Just some friendly advice.  Jon did become extremely successful and went on to the NFL from what I understand and came back after 2 years to continue his work in NCAA.  Having such a background I'm sure contributed to his success as it can for you as well. 

FWIW. 

[VALJ]

ljudge, that's a great post.   

[prosec34]

Every Friday night when I didn't have a game, I'd go watch one of our top crews and observe all the little things they'd do.  Heck, go to their pregame.  They'd probably welcome you there, and it'd show your supervisors you care about improving.  Learning the mechanics of officiating and the basic rules should be your first focus.

And ask questions all you can.  The veteran guys will be more than glad to help you.

Youtube has a lot of videos these days.  The Aloha Clinic stuff is great.

[AlUpstateNY]

Videos are really helpful to see what is happening, but it's the narrative and discussions about the videos that actually teach the lessons that need to be absorbed.