The night before I referee, I hang out with my girlfriend. :o

When I get home my wife always asks if anyone yelled at me. DUH! I reply with a classic line about a bear and the woods. I tell her it doesn't bother me any, it comes with the territory.

She won't watch any game I do because she can't stand to see me get yelled at. How ironic, dear!

I pack my bag exactly the same every time. Undergarments on the bottom of the pile, outergarments in the middle, and shoes in a bag on the top. Dunno why, but I just do.

When the national anthem is played, I make a mental picture of it being done in sign language, unless I'm at the school for the deaf, then I watch the cheerleaders do it and do the English translation in my head.

The whole deaf ref thing interested me enough to run down to the local JC and get into the beginning ASL class.

My vocab is now almost 30 words. Which is 30 more then it was when I started.

I try to get in the locker room first so I can have a quiet moment to get focused. I always say a prayer asking for patience and wisdom in adjudicating the game and to protect the officials and players from injury. Then put on the under armour. Then stretch. Then finish getting dressed, make sure the fly is up.... do the pregame...recheck the fly and make sure I have a whistle plus one in my pocket with a needle. Then go have fun.

I always say a prayer that my partner actually arrives more than 15 minutes before game time.

(Sarcastic? A bit. But unfortunately, not so much.) :(

I'm usually saying that prayer the whole time I'm driving to a game!

Cool. I hope you are enjoying learning ASL as much as I enjoy teaching it.

I usually trim the ol shaggy beard somewhat before I put my rubber band in to center it. Then put my second rubber band in to tie my hair up in a pony tail down my back to get me started. Remove all my piercings. Q tip ears, brush teeth. I am almost ashamed to admit I am up to 1/2 bottle of ben gay lathered up over most of my body avoiding my eyes. The knees have been acting up this year more than ever so it takes some time to put on both compression braces. I sometimes put my calf and ankle braces on as well. I put in earplugs last game to drowned out the fan noise. Next, grab by pair of black Hagger slacks and put them on one pant leg at a time along with my belt to hold them up. Next, pull down the sleeves of my shirt to cover my tats and questionable body markings and pull down the bottoms of my pants to conceal my lucky white socks. Placing my glasses on my nose is also important along with the black elastic band to hold them in place. Stretch the ol hammys a couple times and ask my partner if he has any questions. Finally, slam at least two 5 hour energy drink bottles to get me through and then tell my partner that it is my turn and I will be "tossing" tonite since it is a huge game between two rivals. P.S. Our assignor has told me to stop wearing my suspenders under the stripes since at certain angles they are visable and he said it just does not look too good.

What a coincidence....

The night before I referee, I hang out with your girlfriend too.