a white hat with class

[c it first]

This past Monday I worked my first games as Umpire. (Jr. Varsity followed by Freshman). The one thing I will never forget as long as I officiate is a comment the white hat made. After a long hard drive , White scored a TD against Blue. As I positioned the ball for the try, my white hat came to the line and said " Blue team - you will be receiving the ball at this end of the field after the try". Since many of Blues defense also played offense I could see the dejection of giving up a TD turn to anticipation at getting the ball back. He boosted Blue team's moral and headed off any negative feelings of past performances. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced this simple statement of fact headed off lots of potential problems while giving hope to someone who was down. Maybe this is a common statement but like I said ,it was my first U and I never heard the comment before.