Pre-game
 

Hello all. I've recently been assigned a crew for the year and am looking for some tips, suggestions for pre-game discussion. I've worked with referees that want to run the entire thing and others that barely say two words. If anyone has an attachment they could/would share I'd appreciate it. I'm looking to have it be an all inclusive type of discussion and am just looking for some feedback.

Thanks!

I will tell you that in my high school crew, we mostly just have an open discussion. I will do the first week of the pre-game and the following weeks I give the responsibility to everyone else and rotate that responsibility. Or you could do like many college crews do, give an official something specific to discuss so that all people are involved.

There is no magic formula. You do what works for the people you are with and if you want them to interact, then give them something to do.

Hope that helps a little.

Peace

Good advice.

Thanks!

I have had white hats that have assigned a rule topic to discuss to each crew member.

In the limited games I have worked R, I like to ask each crew member to talk about a situation that occurred in one of their recent games and describe how was it handled and what they learned afterward.

While I don't think the R needs to dominate the discussion, they do need to keep discussion on track and the outline of the meeting intact.

The more you work together as a crew, the more comfortable you’ll become with each other. Empower your crew mates to speak up about situations they’re not sure of. The one topic my crew always discusses is the kicking game.

As R/CC, I usually assign guys to lead the discussion of topics during the first 3 weeks or so of the season. On Friday, we have a 5 man game (one of only 3 for the year) so we'll be discussing 5 man mechanics. Next week, we'll be discussing 7 man mechanics as it will be a 7 man crew (as will most games). Not everything, but the basics and several differences. I also anticipate a blowout so I've assigned one guy to discuss game management and dead ball officiating.

Our pregame Friday will last 25 minutes as we'll discuss a new on the field pregame procedure (we've had some changes), but it usually lasts 15 minutes or so. During the "meat" of the season, we mostly just talk about one play scenario with several potential fouls and what the rules and mechanics on it are.

Keep in mind what the purpose of a pregame is: it is to get everyone THINKING about football. It is NOT necessarily to teach someone something (although learning isn't out of the equation). So people who say, "if you don't know it by now..." don't know what the hell they're talking about. Those guys just need to go away and do something else.

[QUOTE= Keep in mind what the purpose of a pregame is: it is to get everyone THINKING about football. It is NOT necessarily to teach someone something (although learning isn't out of the equation). So people who say, "if you don't know it by now..." don't know what the hell they're talking about. Those guys just need to go away and do something else.[/QUOTE]

It's more than coincidence, how often some unusual situation someone relates to during a pre-game discussion happens to surface during the game being worked, and fortunately everyone's prepared for it.