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When all else fails, go to the book. A veteran official once told me to KNOW Chapt. 2 (definitions) and be familiar with the rest of the book. Good advice.
I have been officiating FB since 1975 and I am having my best year this year because I dedicated myself to knowing the rules and signals better than ever. And.........I am still being corrected and learning! I have the rule book in the bathroom and browse it whenever I am in there. I made a list on my computer of all the penalties (p. 77) and mixed them up. Every week I go through the list and quiz myself with the penalty and signal. That has greatly increased my confidence this year on the field. I white hat about 2/3 of the games I do, including varsity. I have worked all the positions over the years, but this year wanted to learn the umpire position better, so in sub-varsity games I umpire when I can. Working all the positions is great experience.s
I try to engage officials in rules/situations discussions when we are in the car, pre-game, half-time, during timeouts. It is amazing how some don't like to engage in these discussions.
One guy on our crew who is older than I am said the other night that he goes to the case book. I told him the rule book is my friend. We had a question before a game last week and within a minute I found the rule in the book. If I had tried to find the exact situation in the case book we would never have gotten the game started.
A friend of mine is a senior FB official in the Big 12 (formerly the Big 8). He says that hard work got him to where he is today. Sure, there are breaks needed to move up, but no one got there without hard work first. And BTW, I did college FB for 3 years and I enjoy HS FB much more.
Keep studying and discussing!
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