[Canned Heat]

In the same boat as a lot of you and our crew actually talked about this after our last playoff game of the year here a week ago. I thought about throwing this thread out there myself.

I'll preface a bit. I'm 45, with 70 year old knees...lost all 3 ligaments in my right knee in 2000 in a freak injury. Recovered from that well and I am active to the point my ortho told me to take it a little easier. My left knee is actually worse than the right at this point. I get up and down and out of the way as good as I always did...just pay for it more now.

I've worked with the same Friday night crew for 10 or 11 years where I primarily U but work the WH on a handful of our contests as needed. I WH with another crew for JV/FR games and these were the guys that I've worked with for over 15 years. This year, we weeded out youth football commitments and we also decided to back down on the number of commitments we did for JV/FR.

Since scaling our schedule back, the games have become more fun, we're more fresh, and I think we do a better job over the course of the year. I see so many guys or crews working games and you can sense the real reason they're there is to burn thru it, get paid, and get out of Dodge. 2 guys on my V crew are going so hard....I'm not sure how they even do it. I've never looked at it like that...even when I needed the money.

I have watched the coaching at all levels really turn a 180 from when I was younger and even from when I started officiating. Working those youth games especially, where every parent/coach or fan in the stands pretending to be the next Lombardi or thinks their kid is the next Peyton Manning can be tasking at times....you guys all know that. It's really gotten ridiculous in the last 5 years though. I don't miss any of that, and I have more respect for the wings than I did early on. Not sure how some of you guys do it.

"The HC lost his marbles, screaming at me and would not calm down. I flagged him for UNS and my white hat picked up my flag and then basically went over and kissed the coach's ass. That was the closest I've ever been to just walking off of the field."
That may have been the last gasp with that crew...at least that WH. Simply a case of a CC caring more about his rating than the integrity of his crew or the game. I bet that HC went ape$*** the rest of the game afterward too, knowing he had already set the table with no recourse. Asinine.