[Mike Simonds]

Very good points about umpires and whistles. I was told that the umpire should always be concerned with action around the ball, deadball officiating, and preventive officiating. Let the wings pick up the forward progress.

And I've been guilty of picking up the ball on short yardage situations instead of spotting it immediately. The past year I've been concentrating on repeating down and distance during every dead ball period in order to anticipate these situations. Its better to get the ball spotted where it became dead and call an officials' timeout to let the referee get a good look at it.

As far as finger whistles go I like them but I'm so used to holding my lanyarded whistle in my hand that I'm comfortable that way, even running with it(I use a long lanyard so I can run okay with the whistle in my hand).

And its true, umpires should never back up. When in doubt I hold my ground or if I can move quickly side to side I will. Most of the time if you hold your ground the players will go around you (hopefully!!!).