[The Roamin' Umpire]

Varsity game Friday night, NFHS rules.

Visitors are leading 14-7 midway through the second quarter. They have the ball, 4/5 around the home 40-yard line on my hash (as HL, I'm on the visitors' sideline), and elect to go for it. They run a naked bootleg to me side - only one home player picks up on it, but he's fast, and he catches up to the QB about two yards short of the stake, but the ball pops out on the way down. It shoots forward, bounces about five yards (i.e. past the stake), and goes OOB. No problem, 1/10 for visitors. R comes over to see what we got, I tell him, and we get the chains moving. Home captain also asks what happened, I tell him, and he says "Wow, lucky break for them, huh?" I nod my head and say "Yes it was," and we play some more football. So far, no problems.

The next half-dozen plays are ugly and chippy in middle of the field and on the other side - vistors commit both a USC and a DB PF with ejection (launching helmet 10 feet in the air and charging an opponent). It's 3/25, so the visitors take a timeout. I record the timeout and keep an eye on their huddle when I hear my last name called out. I start looking at other officials, and then at sidelines - I thought maybe a few of my students were at the game or something. Finally I notice the home coach has the card with our names on it in hand and is approaching me from his huddle at the center of the field, yelling that the visitor's QB had thrown the ball OOB on the bootleg play, and I've got to make that call.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was talking about - I'd already put the play out of my mind. Then I look at him and said (probably with more heat than I should have), "Coach, there's no way you're coming three-quarters of the way across the field to complain about a play that happened five minutes ago. Go back to your huddle." He didn't, I flagged him, he says "I know it's a flag, I don't care! You have got to call that." At which point my R and U step in and escort him back to his huddle, with him yelling the whole time.

What gets me is that he's got the opponents in a deep hole and he's probably going to get the ball back. He can't change the result of the play he's complaining about. And he knows he's going to draw a 15-yard penalty for doing it, but he came over here anyway. If I were a player on that team, I'd be pretty pissed off at my coach. Visitors end up gaining about eight yards on the ensuing 3/10, converting on fourth down, and driving down to score. Home team had no answer after that, and they ended up routed 47-7.