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Originally Posted by GarthB
Sorry Rut, but what I wrote is indeed accurate. WhenI wrote an article about NFL referee Steve Willson, #29, and spoke with the league office, they stated what I wrote. They sent D-1 officials who they were considering to NFL Europe prior to giving them a shot in "show." They did not go to Europe for three months at a time. They commuted.
From the article:
Steve: There were six Americans and one European. Each crew had a European official. In retrospect, it was great crew. There was Phil Luckett, Curt Dornan, Gary Slaughter, Steve Lindsey, Boris Cheek, me and a guy whose name I can’t pronounce from Finland. All but one made the NFL.
Officiating.com: How did the logistics work; did you fly over for each game or stay for the season?
Steve: Neither. We would leave New York, fly over and arrive in one day. We would work a game the next day then stay in Europe for five days and work another game. Then we’d come home. We would do that twice. A full season for officials was comprised of four games.
Steve did this while still working as a conference official for the PAC-10. He begin his NFL Europe work in 1995 and stayed with it for 4 years. At the end of his fourth season, Jerry Seamens called him and invited him to work in the NFL.
I will take the league statements and that of Steve's as accurate.
The league office also stated that baseball had the best training system going for officials and they wished that somehow they could replicated that system. It was league officials who made this statement, not referees.
You are correct about the Arena Leagues, Arena 1 and Arena 2. With the demise of NFL Europe the league will use the Arena Leagues as they did NFL Europe.
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Garth you are missing the point I was trying to make. I did not say that NFL Europe was not used to hire or evaluate officials. I said that it was by far not the only way they hired officials into the League. It was not at all used like the model of Major League Baseball that if you did not work NFL Europe you could not get an NFL position. Actually in some cases many current staff members worked NFL Europe games. Whether someone from the NFL office likes the MLB model or not does not change that they hire officials straight from D1 ball and will have to do so in similar fashion because there is no NFL Europe anymore. I am sure the NFL would love a similar system, but that is not going to happen anytime soon. And I seriously doubt that the NFL is only going to use Arena Ball as a gauge for what goes on in the NFL when the game is really not completely the same.
I am also not talking about this from what I read. I belong to an association that has 3 current NFL Officials in them and numerous NFL evaluators and one of the most famous NFL Referees in history all come back and evaluate current football officials. I have heard them talk about this in detail and it was never said these officials only got their by working NFL Europe games. And based on what you just posted, that suggest that officials are not even working many games in the first place. So I stand by my statement that NFL Europe is not like Triple A Baseball.
Peace