I'd be curious to hear from someone who has officiated all 3 of the major sports. I've done 2 (baseball and b-ball at lower levels) but my impression is that football is the hardest to officiate. On the other hand, you're a bit more anonymous so maybe there's a fair tradeoff.

I'd be curious to hear from someone who has officiated all 3 of the major sports. I've done 2 (baseball and b-ball at lower levels) but my impression is that football is the hardest to officiate. On the other hand, you're a bit more anonymous so maybe there's a fair tradeoff.

I've only really done baseball and football, but I've been studying up a little on basketball officiating.

 

Based on my limited experience, I think baseball umpires have to deal more with adversarial conduct from coaches, and basketball refs have to make more snap judgement calls extremely quickly.

 

But I think football officiating is more difficult overall for a few reasons:

 

1. There are 22 players moving simultaneously during almost every play, each with an opportunity to foul in one way or another. Granted, there are more officials on the field during a football game than the other sports, but there's a whole lot more to watch for, too.

 

2. There are different types of plays, each with situation specific rules application to master (ie., running plays, passing plays, free kicks, scrimmage kicks and loose ball plays).

 

3. In addition to situation specific rules knowledge and judgement, add timing factors and penalty administration to the list. And don't forget that for most rules there's usually some exception that can apply.

 

By no means do I intend to imply that baseball umpires or basketball refs have it easy, all sports require many hours of rules study and years of practice to refine an official's judgement. Football rules are simply more complex in my opinion.

"...Yoda of the Gridiron..."

Not much of a fan of Star Wars, really. Used to take lunch money from those kids.

 

offside

I'd be curious to hear from someone who has officiated all 3 of the major sports. I've done 2 (baseball and b-ball at lower levels) but my impression is that football is the hardest to officiate. On the other hand, you're a bit more anonymous so maybe there's a fair tradeoff.

 

I do all three, but football just becomes so natural to me, I also call college and with the rules differences between the two, that keeps me on my toes. Yes, it has been mentioned that we maybe asked not to call on Fridays for that reason.

 

As far as which is the easiest, to me, it's football but now, baseball has some wicked rules that can blind side you. It's not all about balls and strikes, safes and outs, baseball has some odd rules, mechanics depending how many are calling. As far as college, much easier, two more officials... 7 men instead of 5, I would be screaming at the KHSAA for 7 men during the last couple of week of playoffs and championship games.

 

There's so much to cover, very difficult to position yourself with 5 men.

 

As far as which region, it depends, NKY is good, very good, they have their own clinics each year, they do a lot of public work throughout their regions, Matt Young and folks do a great job. I have called with a lot of officials from different regions, we are all the same but some have that ability to call the BIG game. Not sure where they're going but like was mentioned a few have went onto the college ranks. Some of use continue to work high school but different conference supervisors have different policies.

Not much of a fan of Star Wars, really. Used to take lunch money from those kids.

 

offside

 

I kind of feel the same way about Harry Potter fans. When I was much, much younger, I used bully Boy Scouts. They were easy pickins! I'm just glad that you didn't beat up football players who also played in the band!!! :creepy:

While officials leave every season to retirement, injury, career changes, or moving up to college, there are new officials who join every year as well. In NKY we have between 90-100 officials in our ranks every year, but only 55 are on varsity crews full time. Of the rest, they work Freshman, JV and youth leagues, with those veteran varsity officials and with others trying to reach that level. They all put in a good deal of time studying rules and mechanics, attending clinics and meetings, and working scrimmages and games, so that they can be ready when the next varsity opening comes up.

 

If anyone out there is interested in learning more about officiating football. send me a private message, or visit http://www.nkoafootball.org. Look for the link about becoming an official.