The class I mentioned in my previous post was certainly a success. We had a group of our core referees, those that are grade 8 and some 7. The instructor did a great job of upping the tone of what separates a good grade 8 from the masses.
Presentation
Professionalism
Presence
We also did a portion of the clinic on the field and his main thing was backpedaling. We do not do it enough and we need to get to be better at it. Running backwards during a punt so you never take your eyes off the action (not the ball when it is 25 feet in the air). Thought that was a well placed comment as well. We tend to do that, look at the ball instead of the players vying for position at the expected landing zone. That is what separates an 8 with what I call a 7.5 (those of you out there that read blogs on refereeing, or stay up on the latest trends qualify as a 7.5 if you are an 8 currently, because the vast majority of the referees in my area are more 8.5 than 7.5).
This past weekend during my son's tournament match, I encountered one such 8.5 as an AR. During an attack for one of teams, this AR flags for offside (correctly or not, not really important to the discussion at hand). The center does not immediately see him and the ball then goes out of bounds for the attacking team. AR then lowers the flag right in front of me and starts to move down the field. I told him to keep his flag up (I know, I shouldn't, nothing good ever comes of it, but I just can't see one of our brethren make mistakes like that). He turns around and tells me that since another call has been made, the offside does not apply. Mind you that the offside occurred before the out of bounds. I told him he was wrong and he told me that I did not know what I was talking about. Oh well, another 8.5er strikes again. I just need to learn to shut up at these matches and do like some others recommend that is not really pay attention to the officiating, but silly things like this get me all riled up. Anyway, shoot me a comment if you see something here that you want more info on. And I will try and keep it quiet this weekend when my kids play again with those 8.5ers that seem to lurk everywhere.
