I wanted to take some time and write up my overall experience with my first year as a high school football official. To begin this conversation, here’s some initial information for my first season:
– Overall, I officiated 59 football games.
– These games ranged from kindergarten to varsity, from flag to tackle football.
– I registered and officiated in two different states: Kansas (KSHSAA) and Missouri (MSHSAA) under the NFHS and KCFC rules.
– I played every possible officiating position throughout the 59 games, including Back Judge (BJ), Line Judge (LJ), Head Linesman, Umpire, and Referee.
– I was on a Friday night crew for my high school varsity games and my position for those games was the Back Judge.
I’ll be honest, the idea of being a referee for football, let alone any sport, never crossed my mind. For some reason, this fostered from watching the XFL. I don’t exactly remember the moment it hit me, but I somewhat remember watching the XFL and there were either commercials or ads about helping kids with the sport of football. I felt drawn to helping kids with football. I googled around my area for football leagues to find someone to reach out to for more information. I was able to get into contact with someone affiliated with a league in my area via email. I asked them how I could volunteer my time to help with kids’ football. He quickly told me this isn’t a volunteer role, that you get paid for officiating. I wasn’t going to scoff at that idea; more money is ok with me. Plus, I can get some exercise and get paid for it? That’s the gig you want right there. You don’t pay the trainer to exercise, instead you get paid for exercising. My contact stated I had to wait for registration to open for KSHSAA and MSHSAA.
Mind you… this conversation was all before COVID. COVID hits, I still sign up for football (and wrestling) but I assume football won’t happen. I complete and pass the exams, which were open book. Then in Missouri, they were holding a mechanics meeting in person. I thought, with COVID, I’m surprised this is happening, but I needed some in-person help. The reasoning for the thought of help is, while I did pass that open-book test, I still felt I had no idea what I was getting myself into. There were three books, probably 100 pages each, and some small text. They were specific on positions, signals, penalties, professionalism, etc etc. I honestly felt over my head. Well, luckily I went to that mechanics meeting in Missouri. There I met future crew white hat/referee, Bob. Bob told me right from the get go “you’ll be in the Back Judge position, so make sure to focus on that in the books.” He then went on to break down each thing I’d need to do on the field as a BJ and I enjoyed it. This mechanics meeting took place during a school scrimmage and at one point I made the rookie mistake of running into one of the kids and fell over. But I got up, laughed it off, and ran back over to Bob.
Bob and the crew were instrumental for me to learn officiating. It was hard in the beginning. There’s no way you can go into your first year of officiating football knowing all of the rules or signals. What I recommend is landing a position on a crew like I did, who can support you and help teach you slowly. The first couple weeks I only did the varsity games on each Friday night. And if you haven’t put 2+2 together, but my very first officiated game was a Friday night varsity game. I’ve told some other officials that and their jaws almost hit the floor. One official told me he’s been officiating for four years and hasn’t officiated a varsity game yet. After the fact I can see why you’d want to start slow and work your way up to those varsity games. But I was fortunate and lucky to meet Bob during that scrimmage. If it wasn’t for Bob and my crew, I’m not sure how much officiating I would have done. No way I probably would have landed those varsity games.
It still blows my mind that I was able to officiate football, meet great people, help kids, get exercise, and make money all through this. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. There were lows and highs points during my first season. I had some games that went off without a hitch; the game would complete quickly with no penalties and no arguing from the coaches, players, and even fans. But then there were games that were really close and any penalty at any time could almost make or break the game. It’s unfortunate that at times, there’s games where, even when it’s a landslide for one team, the losing coach/team becomes very vocal on the sideline to the officials. But they need to realize, it’s not our couple calls that’s resulting in your team losing. I’ve heard by many officials that some of the best advice you can give these coaches is to focus on coaching the players, no the officials.
I don’t think people understand fully what all some of these officials have to learn and go through in order to fulfill their positions. I have a new found respect for all officials. I find myself watching officials quite a bit now during sports. Overall, it was a great experience. If you’re interested in the money aspect, at the end of the season, I was over $2,000 positive. I say positive because you have to spend some money upfront to purchase the officiating gear (pants, shirts, shoes, etc). But luckily that upfront cost really only applies to your first season as you’ll be able to use the same equipment next season. If you’re looking for a part-time side gig, you enjoy helping kids, and you need a little exercise, I definitely recommend football officiating.
Wrestling is my next sport I’ll be officiating this coming winter. I’m sure I missed a ton of information during my first season of officiating. I’m sure I’ll have more posts related to officiating over time. If you have any questions regarding officiating, high school football, or even the money aspect, feel free to reach out or drop a comment on this post. I’ll even hop on a call to discuss anything you’re interested in.