Tom

Here in North Dakota, it is almost possible. Seen snow in June.

"Summer in North Dakota is 3 months of bad sledding."

The officials wearing short sleeve in October in North Dakota. I Guess there's a first for everything.

Zman

Gotta love it. May be wearing short sleeves this Saturday for the playoffs.

Varsity game. A is leading 24-0 and still in first quarter. A is flagged for illegal sub/12 men on field. Coach says to me "your not gonna let us play with 12?" I said "coach, up 24-0 we should make you play with 10 for a half."

Was in the second quarter of a 3rd grade game. One of the players said we need to stop the game. I asked why. He said they forgot to do the National Anthem.

Was working chain on a varsity game. QB flushed out and throws ball way out of bounds nowhere near a receiver. R flags him for intentional grounding. An Assistant coach yells "He was out of the pocket" Head coach turns around and says to his assistant "congrats you just became the get back coach since you don't know that there is no out of the pocket in high school ball."

Varisty game. R flags the RB for a block below the waist on a LB. It occured in the end zone for a safety. I go to the head coach and tell him number 3, block below the waist, it was in the end zone so we have a safety. He said I need a better explanation then that. I said what do you need to know? The running back blocked the LB below the waist in the end zone. He said you mean to tell me that if we held in the end zone it would be a safety too? Uh yeah coach, spot of foul. (Now would it surprise you that that team won state and is (if you get into USA todays HS poll) one of the top ranked teams nationally?)

I've had two of them this season. I was WH for a JV game (first WH) and had intentional grounding. Coach screams he's out of the pocket, and I say, "that's on Sunday coach."

A funnier one was this past Monday. Team with 14 players dressed is getting hammered 40-0 in the second quarter (both coaches agreed and we had running clock 2nd quarter on). I'm LJ so I'm lining up the receiving team who's getting beaten. I give them the whole "mouth pieces in, blocks above the waist" spiel. On the 5th kickoff, I ask them, "do you know the drill?" One kid says, "yeah, we've heard it enough."

Later in the game it's 72-0, three minutes left and we're even running the clock during break between touchdown and kickoff. The same kid said, "take your time" as I was lining them up. I said, "I'll walk to the sideline." Both HL and I took our time getting ready for the KO. Poor kids, but they at least found SOME humor in it....

Friday night we had a game where the QB for the home team was extremely elusive. He would run back and forth across the field multiple times before running for a touchdown and was never touched.

At the end of one of these plays that covered 100 yards but only gained 10 I heard a defender say this, "He's like trying to catch a cat in a corner." I almost doubled over laughing.

During a freshman game a couple of weeks ago, I threw a flag for illegal formation at the snap... Of course, the play went for the longest gain of the day... As the ref was presenting the options to the defensive captains, the coach for the offense was yelling, "Decline it! Decline it!" I couldn't help but ask, "Has that ever worked?"

His response was, "No, not yet."

Kid getting out of control during a game where his team was getting killed, calls WH a "dumb F@%^&$ er" WH throws flag, looks at kid and calmly says, "you would have been all right if you hadn't called me dumb".

And if it did work it would be unsportsmanlike conduct.

Funniest things you've ever heard
 

Another twist on the illegal formation-six men on the line of scrimmage--offense has only 10 men on the field, 6 on the line. Flag for illegal formation, coach wants a number. I ignore. Same thing happens a couple more times during the game, each time coach wants a number and finally calls a timeout. He says you guys keep calling us for six men on the line but you refuse to give me a number. I calmly replied, Coach, we didn't get his number, he was on the bench.

Re: Funniest things you've ever heard
 

Why didn't you tell him this the first time he asked, very unprofessional, in my opinion, to make him call a timeout before you inform him.

w_sohl, you are kidding right?? maybe a there were only 10 on the field coach...but if they really don't understand why there isn't a number...they really shouldn't be teaching our younger generation the game...

No, I am not kidding. He said that he ignored the coach the first time he asked. How easy would it have been to just tell the coach when he asked the first time that he only had ten on the field instead of playing the power game? What would it hurt to inform the coach, did he really need to ignore him? Looks like someone is just looking for problems on the field. Not to difficult to say, "Coach, you only had ten on the field."

w-sohl
I didn't elaborate because I didn't think it was important to the humor of the situation. I was the referee. The coach was informed by my wingman what the penalty was for. That should have been sufficient. I didn't make him call a timeout for an explanation. The timeout was called by the opposing team. No power play intended.

It sounded like you were on that coaches sideline and he simply asked you and you just pretended that he wasn't there. That was the meaning that I got from the post. Did your wingman explain to him that he only had ten on the field or did he just tell him it was an illegal formation? If he had told the coach that he was short a player then the coach has bigger problems if he can't figure it out then.