Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
Also mastery of the rules comes with time, not in one or two seasons. As a football official I am still learning to master the rules and this was will be the end of my 16th season. There are things I have yet to see or when I see them I have to think through the rules. Football has the most difficult rules as they change and each level is so different. You also have to know more than rules, you better know the mechanics or your rules knowledge will not be applied properly.
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Football rules are certainly complex. And football is the only sport where some officials feel they don't really need to know the rules or enforcements because there's someone on the field wearing the white hat -- it's his job.
I have always been a rules wonk, but I never *really* learned the rules well until I became a white hat on a Friday night about 8 years ago. The last thing I want is to have to guess or have to make something up, so I spend the entire season and a lot of the offseason with my nose buried in the football books. I spend more time working on football rules than on the rules of all the other sports I work combined (and probably double that).
I've always used that as an excuse for not wanting to work college football, but to be honest having to keep the two rules sets straight means I really need to know both of them very well. It's a win-win for me.