I require my crew (we use crew system) to be onsite 2 hours before game time. One half hour to dress, one hour for pregame, and on field 30 minutes before game time.
My pregame concerns mechanics with a smattering of rules (If a rule question comes up, the offiical posing the questions gets his rule book out and find the answer and informs the rest of the crew.) Generally it goes like this:
"Greg (BJ) what are you doing on a KO?"
"I'm deep on the visitors side about 5 yards in front of the deepest reciever. I count the R team; signal 11 players to you (me as R). Makes sure players have mouthpieces and chin straps."
I ask each crew member for their responsibilities on KO. I then say that the "kick is away" and repeat the sequence. I will do this for every phase of the game, runs, passes, FGs, PATs. I have a section about pre snap duties - things you need to do before every snap. We will talk about measurments, reporting penalties, half time, general game duties ("see the entire paly with regard to holding, clipping, etc; communication inside the 30, 20, 10, 5; two sets of eyes on catches near the sideline and corners of the endzone."). At half time we will discuss OT proceedures if necessary.
At the end of the game, we will discuss what we did right and what we need to improve upon for next week. Several times during the season I will have the officials switch positions for the pregame. This is so each knows what the other is doing on particular plays. I believe this promotes team unity ("I know my back is covered!") and aid in the ability to step into a different position shoud one of the crew go down.
__________________
Dave
|