It’s been a while since I have done one of these.  For your enjoyment here is another Zebra Tales. Some stories from my and few friends experiences as football Officials.

Sit back and enjoy the lighter side.

The officials locker room and the pregame is always a lot of fun. The crew is getting dressed clowning and joking and breaking each others chops . Complaining and yeah swearing  land lots of it. This goes on right up to the point when the referee says let’s go over the game plan. At that point you could here a pin drop and becomes very professional. The ref talks and the crew clarifys anything they aren’t sure of. The transformation is amazing.

Ok on to the fun stuff.

My best friend in officiating takes very serious as I do. He tries to keep in prespective. He will put up a lot in a varisty game from coaches. But he has no tolerance in the lower levels. He is doing a Freshman game and calls an illegal block in the back . he has a young hotshot coach. He says it was a block in the back he turned it was a holdI’ll be satisfied if you call the hold against us. So my friend says no coach it was a block in the back he hit him square in the numbers. The coach starts yelling at him he turned him that’s Football 101. My friend looks at him throws his flag and says this is football 102 15 for unsportsman like on you.

AS I have said many times in the past when you’re the headlinesman or you have the chain crew in the lower levels it can make or break your game. Sometimes you get officials on the chains or people who volunteer regularly. So here are few chain crew adventures.

I was doing a game it was a youth game so I have a couple of dads on the chains. So I go through my thing about safety and drop them  and get out of the way and don’t move until I tell you to.  One guy says we love doing this so I say why  because I was curious. He says the kids are so little they all look alike and he couldn’t pick his son out so he volunteers for the chains to keep an eye on him. The other guy says me too.

We wear walking off the field one after not a particularly good game. You had to walk up a cement ramp on the side of the stands sowe are walking up the ramp. This young attractive female police officer is trying to walk out for traffic control. So nobody is saying anything and she is keeping pace with us making it look like a police escort finally The referee pipes up(he is a character) and says did we do such a bad job that we need a hired gun to get us out of here. We all laughed including the police officer.

A friend of mine was doing a game  so there is a play on the sideline and he had officials on the chains. The guy drops the stick and gets out of the way  like is supposed to. The play ends upon top of the stick the only problem was the stick got mangled. When the guy dropped it he dropped it back and it was propped up against a players shoulder and the play came out of bounds on top of it. So at half time a coach from the home team and a Chaincrew guys were trying to fix it. They thought the chain crew guy left . he was in the supply trailer with the assistant coach digging out another set of sticks. He comes running up the sideline with them and big cheer goes up. He goes it was a dead balls o nobody knew what the cheer was for it was  for the guy with the sticks.

This happened twice this year to me.

I’m doing a JV game and need a chain crew so I go to the home coach. I saw do you have three lucky gentlemen to do the chains. Coach says I have three perfect gentlemen for you sir. I say it’s appreciated. So he grabbed kids from the freshman team who just played. They were trying to hide from him and the three kids that tried to hide the most is who he picked.

Another game the coach assigned three kids but everytime I turned around I had different kids on the chain crew. Finally one of the assistant coaches picked up on what the kids were doing. He made them run a lap first and then made them stay on the chains the rest of the game it was an 8^th grade game.

Here is the last chain crew story. I’m doing a game as a favor for another official something came up last minute the guy gave me a panic call to cover. So It was a sub varsity game like on a Thursday. There is a big gain and only myself and another official he had the clock and the signals . I had the chains. So I’ yelling for the chains and these kids are talking to the players on the sidelines and not paying attention. Now it’s getting dark and I’m screaming CHAINS CHAINS CHAINS. The coaches are yelling at them the kids aren’t moving . Know I’m thin what the F#$% is going on. Finally there was a good crowd in the stands and They starting yelling Chains, Chains, Chains. They finally come up to where we spotted the ball . I tipped my cap to the crowd and made the pulling tooth signal. I got a pretty good laugh.

Communication on the field is important.

A team scores a touchdown and they go for a 2 point try. I come running in and the line judge does as well we are both waving our arms yelling no no no his short. The umpire tells me you have to signal on those. I say I did he says I saw you signaling. He goes oh shit were the hell was I heard both you guys yelling as well. He apologized and said he had a senior moment. Apparently he did a sub varsity game earlier in the day and one of the guys  he was working with didn’t signal on a similar play. He later said it just bugged him all day.

Sometimes the Fans are too close.

On occasion you do a game somewhere were there  just afew bleachers so people crowd around the perimeter of the field. I was doing such a game and there was a pass in the endzone. The defender and the receiver both go up for the ball. No contact the defender was turned to play the ball. A guy yells that’s a classic case of pass interference(it wasn’t)

So I hear a guy ( he must have been an official or an former Official)yell at the guy thats only pass interference on Sunday after you have scene it in slow motion from 12 different angles nice none call stripes.