Officiating and Cleats

[NewGaRef]

New to officiating football... Every sports seems to have written and unwritten rules for officials. For basketball the shoes should be all black, which are hard to find unless you buy official referee shoes, which i don't like. For football, they want us to wear all black also, but I really don't want to buy the shoes they offer at places like Honigs. Are there any guidelines or suggestions out there. I would like to buy a regular pair of cleats used by backs and receivers because I still play flag football at times.

Any feedback is appreciated.

[JRutledge]

How black your shoes are is mostly a local issue. Some places do not mind if you have a little white on the shoes. So you really need to make sure how much of an issue this is with the people you work for. I know as a basketball official I was always told that you should wear all black shoes only to see many officials at the very least have a logo that is white or some other white/gray marking on the bottom of a shoe.

If you find out that you cannot have anything other than black, you could just buy a largely black shoe and use a combination of permanent marker and shoe polish to mark out all those white or gray areas on the shoes.

Peace

[grantsrc]

No cleats. I think it looks tacky. Some guys wear them but I would go with something else.

See this thread here: http://www.refstripes.com/forum/index.php?topic=2281.0

There are lots of good ideas there. Your best bet, look for some type of turf/coaching shoe. Before you buy, ask someone in your local association. In many areas, the shoes MUST be all black. You can achieve that with a Sharpie and some black shoe polish.

[Jim D]

Even if you don't buy the shoes from Honig's or any other officals equipment store, you can get a pretty good idea of what most guys wear by looking at their catalogs. If you can find shoes that seems somewhat similar at your local sporting goods store (or WalMart for that matter), buy those.

As long as they look similar (don't try going with high top sneakers or something hideous like that) no one is going to look that closely.

[Welpe]

The Reebok NFL Shoes are only $40 at Gerry Davis (www.GerryDavis.com) and they come in all black.

[grantsrc]

Originally Posted by Welpe

The Reebok NFL Shoes are only $40 at Gerry Davis (www.GerryDavis.com) and they come in all black.

Those are the old ones. They're good, but I would spend the money and get the new ones. Better styling and better materials.

[HLin NC]

some of this stuff on the market is too gaudy for an official and will get you shunned at best and chewed out or suspended at worst.

Like it or not, save for the striped shirts, the officials uniform is meant to be conservative in appearance. You may have to break down and buy a flashy pair of cleats to play in.

I forsee the day when officiating associations are going to have to back off a little on shoes. Many of the cleats or turf shoes have at a minimum, a white area between the sole and upper of the shoe. These are difficult to keep black. Also most of today's athletic shoes are now made of man-made material and won't hold shoe dye like a leather model.

Try www.eastbay.com or Zappo's for a good variety of shoes.

[NewGaRef]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback......

Guess it's two pair of cleats for me.

[Texas Aggie]

How long are your flag football games? An hour? You'll be on your feet 3-3.5 hours working 2 games in some cases -- at least we are down here. You DO NOT want cleats. Trust me. I've know guys who wore them and that last hour was miserable.