Reflaine2

Aaron Snyder of Ashland paper tweeted out accident happened Monday and Evans played on Tuesday.

The reasons we as officials don’t chase the ball is we don’t take our eyes off the players. We need at least one (two if there is three officials!) set of eyes on the players at all times. If I’m in a two man game, my partner calls a foul and is reporting it to the table while I’m chasing the ball. then we have a shove, push or punch, fight, or anything who is going to see that if we are worried about the ball. The ball is the least of my worries when calling. And if by some chance we lose that ball, they will find one to replace it. I have never seen a player retrieve a ball, and before he gets back the official quick start the play. As far as two and three officials I will leave this. The average age of officials is raising every year, while the age of the players never change. Let that sink in. There is more officials over the age of 50, than under the age of thirty. Over 70 percent of officials never last longer than two seasons. The number one reason for leaving is verbal abuse. The game is getting faster and faster (fundamentals aren’t keeping up either) and you want to take one official off, and expect two older guys (who even if in shape are not going to keep up with 16-18 year olds without a sub for an entire game.)to cover more areas while complaining about them anticipating and being out of position in three man? How many players play the entire 32 minutes?

As an official, most lower level (freshman and jv games) I call the coaches don’t want or do kickoffs anyways. I’m going to say 75 percent of freshman and at least 50 percent of jv games don’t do kickoffs per coach agreements. Drives start on the thirty, if you punt move ball thirty yards, unless that would put it inside the twenty where it then starts on the 20. Coaches want kids at that level to get more kids game reps. They aren’t worried about kick offs and getting kids hurt on plays that aren’t making them better. Heck a lot of varsity teams struggle to find a kicker, let alone for jv and freshman. Just a quick question, how many scrimmages this past weekend had live kickoffs? Of the three i attended not a single one, also from talking to buddies who called other ones they didn’t do live kickoffs either. If it’s such an important play why are coaches not using it in scrimmages?.

Heard ticket sales for last night were over 5,000. No where else in the region could hold such a crowd. From the pictures I seen the place was pretty full. ESP during the first semifinal game. Now playing girls finals and boys semis on same night is not fair at all to the girls. They are rushed during celebrations and seem like more of an opening act. If you want to play them both on Saturday play the girls final at 2 and then. Boys semis at 630. But just my two cents.