Youth "Coaches" or the Guy That Watches My Kid While I Go Shopping

[AJ Kent]

I started my career volunteering my officiating skills 5 years ago and continue to do so today. Every Sat. morning I show up at the field dressed in official uniform and assume control over the games being played. I have mentored high school football players to assume the various officiating positions. It does take effort on my part to do this, but it begins to build officiating interest in these young folks and they are good at what they do.

I try to practice preventive officiating with every game. I have an individual pregame meeting with each coach and outline my officiating platform.
Points stressed:

All of us are volunteers.
This is youth level football and not the Super Bowl!
Player Safety is first and foremost.
It must be a positive experience for players, coaches, fans, and officials.
We are here to teach these kids the fundamentals of football and not to be punative.
We as officials will call a fair and conscientious game and
our decisions are the final word.
They (the coaches) must agree to this contractualy and affirm this verbally. If for some reason they have a problem with doing this, I walk off the field and leave them to their own devices. (This has never happened.)

I also do JV, HS games during the season.