Dallas Morning News article on Football Officials...(long)

[KingTripleJump]

...and I don't see why it wouldn't apply to b-ball refs either. It's a good read. Also, you have to understand the nature of high school football in Texas.

Overall, I love the job I do and as a college student, officiating helps keep me around the game, in shape, and pays my cell phone bill. But in general, the pay for every official, even tennis, needs to increase.



Football officials: Little pay, but plenty of abuse
03:21 PM CST on Tuesday, November 11, 2003

By PAUL J. WEBER / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News


Rickey Hill clenched his camera, sprung to his feet and pointed a finger toward the tangled players tumbling out of bounds.

"Hey, ref!" the Bryan Adams parent howled. "How are you going to miss that call?"

Or was it missed? Hill confidently submits from his seat two rows behind the visitor's bench that it's common knowledge officials favor the home team.



"I don't ever call them names, though," he adds.

What restraint. After all, when it comes to fans addressing a high school football official, there's no shortage of popular handles. Homer. Zebra. Not to mention more colorful pseudonyms rarely applied to a Baptist minister – and yes, there are two in the area who moonlight in stripes.

"There was once this sweet old lady standing there as we were walking off the field," official Rick Eads recalled. "She seemed so nice, up until I walked by her.



John F. Rhodes / DMN
The officials huddle together for the start of a game.

"Look, I'm sorry whatever I did, because it's not worth a granny cussing you out."

Just about every high school official has a similar story. Some are worse. One official was spit upon. One had the down marker thrown at him. Another was struck in the back by an airborne umbrella.

One crew was chased off the field by a crush of fans, and countless officials have been challenged to fights. One official said a fan was so riled, he called the game assignor to let him know he was looking for him – and that he kept a pistol under his seat.

Not all these accounts come from high school games. Officials largely agree that the worst behavior is rooted in Pee Wee and junior high games, where inexperienced officials, inexperienced coaches and fans positioned close to the field make for volatile situations.

Officials say working a high school game is comparatively smooth. And this year, there are more than 600 members in the Dallas Football Officials Association who work the area's high school games, though far fewer will be involved as the playoffs begin this week.

They are doctors, real estate agents, truck drivers, firefighters, retirees and a few who are otherwise unemployed. Some are former players looking to remain part of the game. Many like working with the players, and others simply thought they could do a better job than others they'd watched.

But at about $75 a game, few are in it for the money.

"A lot of it is an ego trip," said Roy Kimberlin, president of the association. "You know you can do a better job than someone else.

"You sure don't do this for money or respect. There's a saying: If you need money, hold up a 7-Eleven. The public will have a higher opinion of you, and you'll get paid more."

Preparation is key

Matt Loeffler, the former president of the association, is in his 23rd year of officiating. After throwing his first yellow flag on the junior high level, Loeffler now works high school games on Thursdays and college games in the Sun Belt Conference on Saturdays.

The other members of his five-man crew – umpire Wiley Willingham, back judge Tom Bessant, linesman Rick Hoover and head linesman J. Taylor – also double as college officials.

Three hours before kickoff, they meet at a Starbucks near their game. Over tall coffees or a quick snack – on game day, most officials eat a big lunch and forego dinner – they discuss rules, interpretations and/or memos from the NCAA.



John F. Rhodes / DMN
Referee Matt Loeffler signals a score.

Texas and Massachusetts are the only two states in which the NCAA rulebook also is used for high school games. To get everyone "thinking like officials" before the game, Loeffler quizzes the crew with far-fetched scenarios that most crews likely would never encounter.

"You'll never see a play like these," Bessant said. "But if you know these, you'll know anything out there."

Pregame talks

The crew arrives at the stadium about 90 minutes before kickoff. After some small talk and stretching, Willingham completes his pregame checklist by patting himself down.

"Something to blow, something to throw, something to write on and something to write with," he says.

Meanwhile, Loeffler offers a few reminders for the crew. Hands up on the kickoff. When there's a pile of players, one official needs to be digging.

When the teams are on the field for pregame warm-ups, the umpire and referee greet the coaches to get the names of captains and to answer any questions. Bryan Adams coach Mike Smiddy took this opportunity earlier this season to ask if there would by a penalty called if his quarterback threw the ball over his head backward.

The referee said no, and the play was executed in the first quarter without incident.

Other times, crews enter games with an idea of what they're up against. While getting dressed before the Allen-Plano game at Clark Field, Loeffler's crew was given a heads up by a Plano athletic official who entered the locker room.

"Allen's band has 21 sousaphones," he warned. "It's going to be loud down there."

"It won't make any difference to us," Taylor said.

Maybe, but it did make a difference to Plano coach Gerald Brence, who protested the band's playing while his offense was approaching the line of scrimmage. Four minutes into the first quarter, Loeffler paused the game for several minutes to instruct Allen band director Anthony Gibson to keep the sound at a consistent level when Plano had the ball – no raising the notes a few octaves just before the snap.

"High school football should be loud and rowdy," Gibson said after the game. "[The crew] was just doing their job."

The chosen ones

Each April, area 5A and 4A coaches draft crews that will officiate their home games. Teams in Class 3A or lower, as well as private schools, have crews assigned by the association.

To help with the lottery, coaches are made aware of potential personal conflicts that officials are required to disclose – like, say, an umpire who graduated from Rockwall, or a back judge whose son attends Southlake Carroll.

Crews for playoff games are scrutinized even more. Head coaches from both teams must agree on a crew, and the criteria coaches use can vary. Some demand a crew that hasn't worked either team in five years, while others prefer a crew they have seen that season.


The officials, just like both teams, have their own pregame routines.

In the later round of the playoffs, when opponents are from different areas, crews from neutral cities are often used. Or, coaches may strike a deal, like giving up home field in exchange for a crew from their area.

Most coaches, however, already know which crews they want to avoid. All it can take is one bad experience, and a crew is blacklisted.

Hoover remembered one coach yelling to his crew after a game, "Take a picture, because that's the last time you're ever coming back here."

Most officials say high school coaches treat them with respect. Again, the most abusive behavior typically comes in sub-high school games.

W.T. White coach Mike Zoffuto said he could never be an official, given the way they're berated. Even Zoffuto admits to his share of scolding a linesman or referee.

"The only reason I get mad at an official is when he's out of position," Zoffuto said. "But generally, I think nine-tenths of them work at it very hard."

Zoffuto said when he selects crews for home games, he looks for experience and officials who are "not slow down the field." There are two crews that Zoffuto said he would never work with again, saying only that the decision wasn't so much about the way the officials called the game.

Working a game with an especially aggressive coach can be stressful. At one game Loeffler's crew worked this season, it was only a few minutes into the first quarter before one head coach began berating Hoover after almost every play.

"Settle him [Hoover] down," the coach complained to Loeffler during a timeout. "And get that smile off his face, too."

Hoover said all he can do is block out mouthy coaches.

"Hollering back at them is a bad idea," Hoover said. "That just makes a bad situation worse.

"But if they cross the line – flag."

Fewer is better

If officials wanted to, they could throw a flag on just about every down.

"I could call holding on every single play," Loeffler said. "But if it doesn't affect the play, you try to ignore it. You want to be invisible out there."

It's widely accepted that the toughest calls are ones involving judgment, like interference – there are six potential infractions when a receiver and defender are vying for the ball – or roughing the passer. Taylor said one of the biggest gripes of fans is the "late flag." Often, it's just a matter of an official digesting the play before making a decision.

The creed of officials is that a penalty in the first quarter is a penalty in the fourth, but to avoid flag-marred games, "preventive officiating" is the company line of the association. For instance, a linesman might warn a player that he's holding before throwing a flag.

No crew, however, will ever work a mistake-free game.

"If you ever call a perfect game, you should quit right there," Taylor said. "Because it's never going to happen again."

Back in the locker room after a game in which Mesquite and Garland combined to commit only four penalties – what happens when you have two good teams, according to the crew – Bessant sums up the game as an ideal night.

The crew walked off the field, and no one knew they were there.

"What the fans don't understand is that we want to see the right call more than anyone else in the stadium," Bessant said. "At the end of night, we're the only ones who know if it went well."

E-mail [email protected]